Are You Really Striving Hard? Or Are You Simply Toiling?

Do you ever have somebody around you who spend most of their waking hours at work? Whenever you try to ask them out, they claim to be always very busy and have seemingly never-ending work waiting to be completed. However, when you ask around their colleagues and bosses on how they are performing, they shake their heads in disbelief, like they have numerous untold stories to tell. In short, they are really busy, but the work they produce are not pretty.

You may wonder, so what are they really busy at? It seems strange that if they were really putting in the hard work, why aren't the work done nicely? Where in the world could be the problem? The problem lies in them not really striving hard. They were simply toiling aimlessly. 

 Remember an instance when I was still in school, there was a classmate of mine that did the same things that many of the better students did. He spent his time studying whenever he could and he played hard as well. However, his school results were not stellar. He blamed it on the fact that he could never think fast enough. After one of the exam, he was busy penning things down and I peeked into what he was busy writing about. He was engrossed into copying each question and answer into a notebook.

 I asked him curiously, "Why are you spending time just copying everything into a notebook?".

 He replied: "Why not? The exam script is too messy. Keeping everything in a notebook makes it easier for revision."

 I then asked: "Have you actually studied and understood all the questions and answers?"

 He replied, seemingly annoyed: "When can I find the time to understand everything? Just let me first finish copying everything then I will get to it."

 You may wonder, just what are they so busy about? There are people who will receive praises for a job well done despite having working not as much those aforementioned.

 The classmate of mine commented, "Look at that Classmate X, he doesn't usually burn midnight oil, but he still managed to get third in class. His parents must be very rich, and who knows, they might have bribed the teacher into giving him the answers."

 Why do some people just able to do well without much effort?

 In the case of this particular Classmate X of mine, the secret lies in thoroughly understanding where he had previously gone wrong. Is it due to the fact that he has not understood the topic well, or could it be due to his incorrect way of applying his thinking during the exam? If he knows he is unclear of the topic, he would revise the topic over again. If he made a mistake in deriving the answers, he would then find out what is the right way to formulate the answers. Similar approach will then be used in the future while only valuable information are written down.

That is the difference between striving hard and toiling repetitively. Toiling aimlessly is expending your time and energy on doing things in a fashion that is of extremely low efficiency, while striving hard is getting things done in a highly efficient manner. We should be afraid of people who are smarter and more dedicated in their pursuit, and not people who are smarter than us but are using a lot of their time in an unwisely manner.

 Toiling repetitively is revolving around tasks that are nowhere near the core of the matter. Striving hard is focusing on your target and making sure every step you take brings you closer to your goals.

 One dominant feature of toiling aimlessly, be it in workplace or school, is repeatedly doing tasks that leaves little to no impact to the grand scheme of things. Identify these behaviors and eliminate them so that at the end of it all, you can feel accomplished, knowing that everything you have done today will set you up to become that person you want to be in the future.

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