Work Smart, Not Hard

While there is a new, or at least relatively new, saying making its requisite rounds - work smart, not hard - this is only a way of saying that it's okay to be lazy. While working smart is necessary if one wants good results, working hard is doubly so.

Working hard, good old fashioned sweat and discipline, will always be needed. There is no other alternative to it if one wants to achieve things. A highly convenient society - microwaves, instant coffee, vending machines, escalators - breeds a mindset of doing what is easy. While this works for consumer products, this does not, fortunately or unfortunately, work on people.

Working hard is one's way of affirming one's usefulness in life. It allows one to say that the world is becoming a little bit better, or at least changing, because one exists. It is a way of leaving one's mark.

Even the 'lucky' ones who attained their goals through what seemed like chance did, in fact, work hard to get to where they are. Entrepreneurs are commonly given half-credit for their achievements. People often say, 'Oh, why didn't I think of that before?' as if thinking about a thing and doing something about it is the same. Thoughts and ideas are cheap. Translating these thoughts and ideas into actual, concrete actions and workable concepts are much harder. They didn't just work smart - they also worked hard.

At the core of working hard is discipline; a drive that one will continue whatever one is doing regardless of feeling, mood or state of mind. It is an ability and a skill that enables a person to keep doing something regardless of outside influences; while one takes the feedback one gets from others to improve one's work, these feedback do not change the amount of effort exerted. One simply goes on and on regardless of others.

For example, buildings are not constructed out of 'working smart' alone. While engineers and architects use their smarts to construct these structures, they still worked hard to set their thoughts, their ideas and their creativity into paper, and then to bring together a group of people to translate and manifest these ideas into a concrete object.

Working hard will always be a part of an adult's life. One may think that because of computers, of modern machines and conveniences, that working hard is obsolete. That cannot be farther from the truth. These conveniences have merely created a higher expectation of what one can achieve in a given time. These are essentially 'force multipliers' - a military term for objects which increase one's effectiveness - that enables one to achieve more in less time.

Simply put, there is no excuse and no alternative for one's best effort. Catchy phrases may engage the imagination, but in the end only actual work will change the actual, physical world.