The hard work conundrum

If there is one thing we have all heard our parents say with vehemence, it is that you must work hard. Reinforcing this thought are various aphorisms, anecdotes, fables and other literary elements which have been passed from parent to child shaping successive generation's philosophies and psychologies. My report card in school always had a quote written in a semi-circular arch over the school logo

"As you sow, so shall you reap" 

This filled me with a sense of jubilation when I had a good result and a sense of profound guilt when I didn't. After having gone through two regimes of school and college life, I can say with some certainty that we as a society certainly attach phenomenal value to hard work. Hard working lads are considered the paragons of virtue and the object of adoration for parents and elders alike. They seem to embody everything good, a sort of conformity to the collective ideals of our society. But ironically for a society, so obsessed with ends, how far can means (hard work) help us if they don't

lead to desirable ends. Or does hard work really always lead to desirable ends? After all, Sisyphus still rolls up the boulder only to see it roll down again and I don't think many of us would aspire to be a modern-day Sisyphus

To be frank, there is no single objective answer to this question. There are extremely hardworking people who seem to be forever dejected at how unfair life has been to them despite their assiduous efforts at becoming better at it. Then there are those who take on the mantle of mavericks, those who can manage to pull off great feats without burning the proverbial midnight oil or at least that's what they claim. Most of the people lie safely ensconced between these two extremes. For most of us, hard-work sometimes pays off, while at other times it doesn't. When it does, we are praised for our dedication and when it doesn't we are just told to try again. You know failure leads to success, Edison failing 1000 times etc. This ambiguity poses a conundrum and puts the school of thought which lionises hard work in a spot. 

There are multiple ways to look at it. Firstly, hard work can be viewed as fuel for your car. It can take you places but only when you know the way and are ready to wait patiently until the destination is reached. Sacrifice any of the two things and the fuel will either be consumed too soon or be laid to waste. Working hard just for the sake of it might have had its charm during the days of the Industrial Revolution, but today in the age of automation and ideas, until your hard work is backed by a grander blueprint or road map, it will only set you up for more monotony and frustration and when even hard work doesn't lead anywhere, the frustration is manifold. 

Secondly, the question as to whether hard work really matters also affords a fresh look at what exactly is hard work? As we have established earlier, hard work doesn't only entail bodily exertion as it might have done in yesteryears. The image of a hardworking man toiling in the fields, or on the industry floor, profusely sweating and taking his body to the limits is a little anachronistic now. Today most of such tasks can be and are being performed by machines with as much or more efficiency than humans. Thus it is necessary to understand hard work from the perspective of the information age - the age of ideas. Today hard work means different things for different people. A person might involve himself in some task for 10+ hours without breaking a sweat and come out of it feeling more refreshed and energetic than ever before. This, by all means, doesn't look like stereotypical hard work but he performs exceedingly well in his career and goes places, all the while enjoying this journey of his. Hard work, today, cannot be defined in unified terms. There is no single yardstick to measure yourself against. All you have to do is be honest to yourself and doggedly approach your pursuits. 

Both such ways point to a simple truth, working hard for the sake of it or because it is supposedly a virtue doesn't cut it in today's day and age. What you need, rather is a plan, and a conviction to do whatever it takes to achieve that plan. An overbearing emphasis on the means at the cost of neglecting the ends is the single most un-21st-century thing you can do. Pundits have coined the term Smart-work, after the age of the smart gadgets. Smart work essentially means curating your means to most effectively achieve your ends without going into redundancies. Replacing hard work with smart work might not essentially reduce your work hours but surely modulates your work in a way where it is more in tune with your goals and helps you further specifically those. Smart work involves working hard, knowing where to draw a line, sometimes even bunking work in lieu of smarter short-cuts and it does all this unabashedly because it's sole aim is to achieve the goal (all legally rest assured) and not get caught in the web of conformity. 

So does that mean that working hard should be avoided? Well no, think of it like this, you need to sharpen your tool no matter whether you wish to cut fruits, meat or go to war. The tools are different, if you plan on sharpening each one of them simply because working on the whetstone would prove your dedication to the causes, then my dear reader, your friends will eat your apple, take away your chicken and perhaps plunder your kingdom all while you work the whetstone. Your ego might be satisfied because you worked hard and the society appreciates your efforts but in objective terms assuaging your ego came at a huge cost. When time is of the essence, you need to work smart every time and work hard sometimes. Compromise on either and you stand a chance to lose out on opportunities. Bill Gates did not reach where he is today by avoiding hard work and shirking away from responsibilities, but every programmer who has coding skills and spends hours honing the same doesn't necessarily become a Bill Gates. 

So the thought I leave you with this Sunday: 

Don't focus on working hard. focus on achieving your goals - the rest will follow