Working really, really hard. Is it a path to success or just madness? — Chapter #1
Purpose of this article: Dive a little bit deeper into the topic of ‘hard work’ and how it can or cannot influence one’s level of achievement / success in different aspects of life.
Part #1: What does “work”, “hard”, “working hard”, “learn”, “fail” and “madness” mean?
According to ‘OxfordLanguages’:
- To work is defined as ‘Process, involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result’.
- Hard is defined as ‘With great deal of effort’.
- Working hard is defined as ‘Performance of activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result’.
- To learn is defined as ‘Process of gaining or acquiring knowledge of or skill in (something) by study, experience, or being taught’.
- To fail is defined as ‘State of being unsuccessful in achieving one’s goal’.
- Madness is defined as … ‘a state of wild or chaotic activity.’
‘’Small list of definitions above should be enough to start analyzing how ‘hard work’ is correlated with one’s achievements / level of success in life.
Part #2: Why the f*ck am I even writing about it?
Short and direct answer: “Because I am an overthinking workaholic with one thousand and one hobbies who needs to put maximum effort in every task I do. Sometimes I catch a feeling that not everything is worth putting so much effort in, and since writing helps me to structure thoughts and emotions, and put them in one direction, I really hope that by the time this article is complete I will have an answer to the question in the title.”
Short, but more cold headed, and logical answer: “Since 01.01.2016 I have lived in three different countries, did variety of hobbies (some of them were complete opposites of each other), invested number of hours in multiple courses and certificates connected to field of Data Analysis, Cybersecurity and Financial Crimes… and… at the amazing age of 31 I am returning to where I was when I was 23 years old… writing articles, doing martial arts and investing my time in more human / less technical aspects of our world… So was all of my hard work during last eight years in vein or no? I will do my best, that by the end of this article, I will have an answer.”
Part #3: “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” — Caterina Fake
Well… let’s get back to ‘OxfordLanguages’:
- Right is defined as: “a moral or legal entitlement to have or do something.”
In all honesty… that didn’t make it much easier, like it did a bit earlier in the article (except the legal part… that’s quite straightforward).
Disclaimer: I like using logics in order to come to conclusions (following thought to thought in a consistent and structured manner, but, in order to move with the article further I will need to take a huge shortcut and rephrase one thought said by John Danaher, and mentioned in the book ‘Unfair Advantage’:
Start working on things which come to you naturally, and don’t be discouraged that it is easy in the beginning. There will be enough competition and hardships along the way.
In my case it was creating narratives (via writing (Wrote my first article on Medium in 2014 (https://medium.com/@ericericsson/38e49a58015e) and speaking) as well as close contact based arts / sports (grappling (doing BJJ at the moment), partner acrobatics (first tried in 2017 and still practicing it time to time), and dancing (learning Salsa at the moment as well)).
I was doing the right thing… the right thing for my soul… until I stopped. And now, I am conscientiously getting back to where my natural strengths lie and beginning to work hard on the right thing.
Lifehack I have understood recently: If several people (who have no connection between each other) compliment you on specific skill, character trait, product of your labor etc., it might be the right thing for YOU to do. Just listen to people around you.
Why do I believe that recently discovered lifehack might be correct? According to one psychotherapist (Andrey Kurpatov), mother nature is not interested in one single individual human being, but rather in species as a whole. Hence it has programmed us in one way or another to complete each other and seek each others help to prolong our survival (not counting the moments when we fanatically trying to exterminate each other). As a result, we subconsciously identify people who are better then us in specific domains. And, if their expertise does not threaten our personal survival, we will give them a sincere compliment on their talents and skills.
Part #4: Summary… for now.
- Understand meaning of words / things you are going to work with
- Answer the questions: “Why are you doing this?” (Answers like: “I feel like I am attracted to this thing” are totally acceptable on the beginning stages of everything).
- Identify the the right thing for you by trying out multiple crafts, finding out the ones where you see the good results the fastest (and processes which are easiest for you in the early stages) as well as listen to people around you on things they feel you are doing good job at.
