I define “hard work” as the work that is challenging. Both hard work and working hard are required for success. And why is a challenge important? Why not just do what is the easiest?Most people will do what is easier and avoid challengs/hard work – and that’s precisely why you should do the opposite. The much together challenges will usually see a lot lesser competition and a lot more opportunity.
Success is not something that you run into by accident. It takes a lot of preparation and character. It takes sacrifice and self – discipline. There is no substitute for hard work. Henry Ford, founder of Ford motor Company said, “The harder you work, the luckier you get” is really true
One cannot develop a capacity to do anything without hard work, just as a person cannot learn how to spell by sitting on a dictionary. Professionals make things look easy because they have mastered the fundamentals of whatever they do. The best musicians practice everyday.
Bharatha Ratna (India’s highest civilian honor) awardees Smt.M.Subhalakshmi used to practice/rehearsal at least 108 times before going for final recording. She believes that if she did not practice for a month her audience will find the difference, if she did not practice for a week her co-artists will find the difference and if she did not practice for a day, she herself find the difference.
Work is one of the best educators of practical character. It draws forth discipline, obedience, self-control, attention, application and perseverance. It gives a man skill and tact in dealing with the affairs of day to day life. All that is great in man comes through hard work and we remember by their work. How do you remember Albert Einstein? With his famous equation E=mc2 or Theory of Relativity. What comes to our mind when think of Thomas Edison? List goes on.
It is idealness that is curse to you not work. Idleness eats the heart out of you and consumes you as rust does for iron. So it is said ‘it is better to wear out instead of rust out’. While Alexander The Great was on the death bed, his final watchword to his soldiers was, “Laboremus” (we must work) and nothing but constant toil maintained the power and extended the authority of the Greek empire. After the death of alexander Romans captured the power. It is well known fact that the downfall of Roman authority is inevitable because of procrastination, corruption and luxury of ruling classes.
One wise man asked an intelligent foreigner and who traveled over the great part of the world, whether he observed any one quality which could be regarded as a universal characteristic of human beings. His answer was in broken English, “Me think that all men love lazy”. It is natural to men and women wish to enjoy everything without hard work. But remember laziness never climbed a hill, nor overcome a difficulty that it could be avoided. Idleness always failed in life, and always will.
“laziness and procrastination”, Burton in his book ‘Anatomy of Melancholy’ says, “ruin/poison the body and mind the nurse of naughtiness, the chief mother of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, ……. His final watch word is “not be lazy – be not idle”.
True happiness is never found in the inaction of the faculties, but in their action and useful employment. It is “disliking effort” that exhausts, not action, in which there is life, healthy, and pleasure “Nothing is so injurious,” said Dr.Marshall Hall “as unoccupied time”. An archbishop used to say that, “the human heart is like a milestone. If you put wheat under it, it grinds the wheat into flour, if you put no wheat, it grinds on, but then it is itself wears away”. Idleness is full of excuses “there is lion in the path”, or “The hill is hard to climb”, there is no use trying – I have tried, and failed, and cannot do it”.
It has been truly said, that to desire to possess prosperity, without being burdened with the trouble of acquiring, is as much a sign of weakness. Even leisure cannot be enjoyed unless it is won by effort. There must be work before and work behind, with leisure to fall back upon: An idle man of 40, undergoing his eight imprisonment in France tattooed on his right arm might be adopted as the motto of all idlers: The past has deceived me; the present torments me; the future terrifies me. It is true that to be idle and useless is neither an honor nor a privilege; it is well said that as you work as your life, show me what you can do, and I will tell you what kind of person you are.
Napolean pay great respect to the inventors and said to his wife in one occasion “Respect the burden, madam”. Sir Walter Scott, English poet gave much importance to work, who was himself one of the most laborious untiring man wrote to his son Charles, when at school. “work is the condition which God has imposed on us in every station of life ……………..but if we neglect our spring, our summer will be useless and contemptible our harvest will be chaff and the winter of old age unrespected and desolate”.
William Roberstson, the Scottish historian as early as his fifteenth year, adopted the maxim of “Life without learning is death”. Voltaire, French writer and historian motto was “Always at work”. The favorite maxim of Lacepede, the French naturalist, was “To live is to observe”.
Hard work is both a beginning and an end in itself. The harder a person works, the better he feels; and the better he feels, the harder he works. The best ideas will not work unless you work on the ideas.
Once when Fritz Kreisler, the great violinist, finished a concert, someone came up to the stage and said, “I’d give my life to play the way you do.” Kreisler replied, “I did!”
There is no magic wand for success. In the real world, success comes to doers, not observers. A horse that pulls cannot kick; a horse that kicks cannot pull. Let’s pull and stop kicking.
Without hard work there is no successes. Nature gives birds their food but does not put it in their nest. They have to work hard for it. Nothing comes easy. Milton rose every morning at 4 a.m. to write Paradise Lost. It took Noah Webster 36 years to compile Webster’s Dictionary.
Work is a blessing not a curse. It is sure an inspiring word to reach your destination. Thanks to Thomas Edison who gave just 10 words to chant day in and day out for the mankind “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”. So let us Aspire to perspire before you expire.
Dr . Rajendra Naidu 