Hard work VS Smart Work

                For the fact that  we are social beings our life is tied hard and rough with those invisible ropes of duties and responsibilities. While in school and college life, our class works and assignments, and after that, our job. Throughout our life we face more than enough unwilling tasks that consume both our time and concentration. Thus here lies a big question. How should we handle our works? And two of the obvious answers of this questions are – HARD WORK, and SMART WORK.

                Now there is actually no particular solution to this question. If you know about the theory of relativity, then you can also tally this problem with the statements. There is nothing absolute in this universe, rather our vision and perceptions are all dependent to our relative state to the frame of reference. And in this case, the frame of reference is nothing but the impact of our devotion to the work to our life. For suppose you are asked a favor by your friend to write his assignment. I will prefer to copy things from internet rather than researching over that fact and then writing on my own. And you will probably choose that path too. But if it’s your own assignment, will you do the same? Most probably the answer to this is yes too. But think again, If you choose smart work this time, You will physically get no experience at all. And when you will encounter the problem associated with that, you will probably think, “I should have done it on my own”.  This is how when, the frame of reference changes our action to it should also change.

                Thus the results of our actions only determine whether we should do hard work or choose smart work.

There are some people who are extremely genius. Given any condition or environment they will accomplish the target. But they are very rare but do exist.

The second category is where all the all the people reside. They are the people which are extremely determined and patient backed with the ability of extreme hard work to achieve success. Actually some people in this category consider themselves very smart and start procrastination and leave hard work and start losing the track. The major problem with the so called smart working guys is that they give up very easily because they have a habit of hitting the bulls eye so easily and quickly that when at some point they failed to do something they think this can't be done from them as they don't have patience and haven’t seen many failures in the life. They are very bad in dealing with the failures. On the other hand the hard working people has been to failures frequently so they finally complete the given task no matter how many times they fail.

                For your tasks, always you should give importance to hard work. But if you arrange your hard works in a smart manner it will reduce your hard work but increase your output. And the thing that has the most impact on the judgement of your work, is nothing but output. Your work must have max output. And that is all that matters. What is more important to a car - accelerator? Or the steering wheel? Hard work gives the momentum, the push, 'the stop at nothing' frame of mind. Smart work steers us towards the intended destination. So, it’s no either-or; we need both. Mere hard work can lose direction and mere smart work may get trapped in mind games & loose the steam midway.

In this case I would like to consult a little story:

Many years ago in a small Chinese village, a farmer called Feng had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer's beautiful daughter Mei. So he proposed a bargain.

He said he would forgo the Feng's debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter Mei were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then Mei would have to pick one pebble from the bag.

1.    If Mei picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father's debt would be forgiven.

2.    If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven.

3.    But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer's field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.

Now, imagine that you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?

Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1.    Mei should refuse to take a pebble.

2.    The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.

3.    Mei should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder over the story. The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl's dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chooses the above logical answers.

What would you recommend that Mei should do?

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Well, here is what she did ....The daughter put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

"Oh, how clumsy of me," Mei said. "But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked."

Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

…….

                But on the same time it completely makes you empty not working hard, and only apply smart means to solve your problems. Hard work provides us experience to overcome our problems in even very adverse situations. Hard work for your own provides you a solid foundation and depth. Thus there is no absoluteness as I told you before.

                At the end all that I would like to tell, from the question I assume you know the difference between hard and smart work. Then the answer lies in your question itself! Where 'smartness' comes because one wants to be successful. By hard work one can get along and need not aspire to be successful. Success demands more than what one can do. And that comes from being smart in our work so that it gets recognized and appreciated. Toiling long and hard unknown to others will satisfy only those who (wrongly) think that 'hard work, like virtue, is its own reward!' But, that is NOT success, you too know.

So here lies the question. What do you think?