Hard Work Doesn’t Matter — Here’s Why

In America, we often tell the story of “hard work.” We consider a propensity to work hard as one of our most important virtues. We praise Presidents who spend as much time in the Oval Office as possible. We worry about whether our children are becoming hardworking or succumbing to laziness.

We tell people that the only thing separating them from their dreams is hard work and the temerity to aspire to more.

Personally, I believe hard work is powerful. I think commitment is an admirable trait that says many good things about a person. I think hard work alone can make the impossible possible…

…but only a certain kind.

Digging Ditches is Hard Work, But Ditch Diggers Aren’t Wealthy

Some of the hardest work I can imagine is the lowest-paid labour on the planet. Any kind of construction, customer service, and any job at minimum wage is almost guaranteed to be miserable, have terrible hours, and be managed by a boss that doesn’t seem to understand you’re a human.

Stack that on top of the incredible leaps and pirouettes the impoverished have to perform to survive and the rising rates of single parenthood, and you’d be a fool to call anyone living at the poverty line lazy.

But at the same time, it’s not as if every lazy privileged sod goes on to make something of themselves. I grew up in the kind of area where everyone’s parents went to college, and while many of my classmates went on to get their own Bachelor's degrees, many did not. Of those that did, a large percentage of them struggled to reach the economic level of their parents at the same age.

In America, being born to privilege is no guarantee of success.

At this level of economic competition — where everyone has access to the resources, a personal network, and internet connection — they need to make something of themselves. What separates people who achieve their dreams from those who don’t is hard work. Some people do what it takes to achieve their dreams, and some just don’t.

A Certain Kind Of Hard Work

When a coal miner continues to show up at work every day (lest he gets fired and ends up destitute), he is going to work hard that day, but it is a resigned sort of hard work. The coal miner says to himself, “this is my fate,” and accepts it the way criminals accept the executioner’s axe.

When a struggling YouTuber continues to make one video every day, despite none of his videos getting any views and nobody in his life supporting him, he is also being hardworking. But he is being a completely different kind of hardworking.

He isn’t consigning himself to his fate; to consign himself to his fate would be for him to give up the YouTube channel and spend his free time playing video games. His attitude is one of optimism; he works hard, looking toward the future, hoping his hard work will create something more.

What really matters isn’t the “hardworkingness” of the YouTuber versus the coal miner. What really matters is the YouTuber’s mental attitude of hope for the future, and his willingness to take action based on that hope.

He will try different techniques and different headlines and different video lengths until he finds something that works, however long that takes.

The coal miner looks forward to the end of the day; the aspiring YouTuber looks forward to the end of his day job, forever.

The Takeaway

Because of the powerful effect of our attitude, our ability to be successful in the future is highly dependent on it. We are not able to improve our life or the lives of others until we think they can be improved. If we approach our lives with an attitude of optimism and enthusiasm for the work, our lives will get better every day. If we approach our lives with an attitude of failure and resignation, we will be continually disappointed.

Each of us has a choice to make: Will we believe in our ability to improve our lives? Or will we resign ourselves to our fate?

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