Our first prompt comes from Shi. She asks:
One feels better when you have worked hard for money/success/wealth. Fact or myth?
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Shi,
Many of us were told as kids that we had to work hard to be successful. “Work hard and you’ll pass your exams/be successful in life.” I heard that over and over again when sitting KCPE, KCSE, my uni exams, and I continue to hear it now that I’m a working adult.
People are enamored with hard work. Every day someone tweets “While they sleep, I grind” or “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” or some variation of that sentiment. It’s like we have a cult of hard work. Which doesn’t sound like a bad thing, except when it is.
I think we propagate this narrative because we want to feel like we are in control – of our lives and the outcomes therein. It is satisfying to say that your money/success/wealth is because you worked hard. It fulfils a narrative fed to us since childhood. We desperately want, or even need, this to be true for things to make sense to us.
This way, others that are not as rich/successful/wealthy simply didn’t work as hard. This way, you deserve your money/success/wealth. Yet we know this isn’t always true. In fact, many times, hard work does not guarantee anything. You could study for hours, harder than anyone else in your class, and still fail your exam. You could work hard at the office and still not get promoted.
There are many things that play into how rich/successful/wealthy we are, and hard work is but a small part. The rest of the things, we may not be in control of – we are not in control of where we are born, who our parents are, the colour of our skin, our sex – but we are in control of our input, so we place disproportionate weight on it. We don’t think much about the role luck and access to opportunities plays, because those can’t be explained as simply, and are not reliant on our prowess per se.
So when we succeed – when we finally make it, we attribute it to all the work we put in, and damn it feels good. We are vindicated. Our internal narrative is proven to be correct. All is well in the world – it makes sense. There is order.
So yes, it is true. Generally, people feel better when they have worked for money/success/wealth. Hard work is valuable because we have made it so. We also have the power to unmake it, but I doubt that will happen any time soon.
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This post is part of a daily writing experiment that I’m running for a year. I’d love it if you took part! 🙂