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Think about all those people who always worked more than everybody else and sacrificed everything just to fail. There are very few blog posts about those guys.

Think about all those people who always worked more than everybody else and sacrificed everything just to fail. There are very few blog posts about those guys. Its the same with people who study 100% more than everybody else to pass a class but still fail. You hear about those who made it thru, but never the ones who did not have the capacity for their goal. Its up to you to know where you stand in this and what you want to sacrifice. But always remember, romanticizing hard work only does good for society but very rarely for the individual.

hamilyon2 6y ago
Well, does it do good to sosiety? With all the broken families and mental health disabilities?
- xwdv 6y ago
  Society creates new individuals and families, but an individual only has one chance at a good life.
zeroxfe 6y ago
> But always remember, romanticizing hard work only does good for society but very rarely for the individual. As someone who ran two failed startups, it's all about perspective. I gave up a ton to build and run my companies, and failed, but in no way do I regret it, or consider it a sacrifice. The amount that I learned, the people that I met, the skills that I developed, I'd never get from working a regular job. (I wrote a mini-postmortem[1] for my last startup.) There is huge personal value in taking big risks and doing difficult things even when you fail. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/quid-sudo-shutdown-h-now-mohit-muthanna-cheppudira https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/quid-sudo-shutdown-h-now-mohi...
- blodkorv 6y ago
  There are definitely sometimes you can make it into a learning experience. It depends on what kind of risk you are taking and when you decide its time to throw in the towel, and many other factors.
franciscop 6y ago
Wait there's a lot of blog posts there on "how I failed", "why my startup failed" etc. Do you not mean that? It was a whole topic thing 5-10 years ago IIRC.
wesammikhail 6y ago
> Think about all those people who always worked more than everybody else and sacrificed everything just to fail. > But always remember, romanticizing hard work only does good for society but very rarely for the individual. If you dont think hard work does good for the individual, then you are not only mistaken but most likely trying to justify your laziness more than anything else. And if you think the input size of your labor has to be proportional to the output size of success/failure, then you´ve completely misunderstood the relationship between labor and success. Hard work on its own is insufficient to success - there are many other factors required (timing, capital, support/network, etc.) - yet it is required for success because having all the other factors come together without hard work to bind them leads to abject failure most often. And sure, you can talk about the few exceptions to the rule that got lucky, we can all envy those. But unless you are one those people who got lucky, you have no better strategy available to you if you want to succeed. Besides, hard work has an insane amount of benefits to it even if failure is the outcome. You learn new things all the time, you connect with people that may become your greatest supporters in the future, you grow as a person and most importantly when you look in the mirror you come to respect yourself because you choose to bear a burden that few are willing to. Most people dont take risks, most people dont work hard, and most people would rather smoke weed and chill on a couch rather than work on something that will enrich their lives be it financially or otherwise. Hard work is the only reliable strategy available for the average person to become a better version of themselves and with that create a better future for themselves AND society. So no, hard work does not "rarely" do good for the individual. It most often does good for the individual. The probelm with your statement is that you are equating "good" with "success" (mostly financial) and those two things are very very different from each other.

hamilyon2 6y ago

Well, does it do good to sosiety? With all the broken families and mental health disabilities?

xwdv 6y ago
Society creates new individuals and families, but an individual only has one chance at a good life.

zeroxfe 6y ago

> But always remember, romanticizing hard work only does good for society but very rarely for the individual. As someone who ran two failed startups, it's all about perspective. I gave up a ton to build and run my companies, and failed, but in no way do I regret it, or consider it a sacrifice. The amount that I learned, the people that I met, the skills that I developed, I'd never get from working a regular job. (I wrote a mini-postmortem[1] for my last startup.) There is huge personal value in taking big risks and doing difficult things even when you fail. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/quid-sudo-shutdown-h-now-mohit-muthanna-cheppudira https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/quid-sudo-shutdown-h-now-mohi...

blodkorv 6y ago
There are definitely sometimes you can make it into a learning experience. It depends on what kind of risk you are taking and when you decide its time to throw in the towel, and many other factors.

franciscop 6y ago

Wait there's a lot of blog posts there on "how I failed", "why my startup failed" etc. Do you not mean that? It was a whole topic thing 5-10 years ago IIRC.

wesammikhail 6y ago

> Think about all those people who always worked more than everybody else and sacrificed everything just to fail. > But always remember, romanticizing hard work only does good for society but very rarely for the individual. If you dont think hard work does good for the individual, then you are not only mistaken but most likely trying to justify your laziness more than anything else. And if you think the input size of your labor has to be proportional to the output size of success/failure, then you´ve completely misunderstood the relationship between labor and success. Hard work on its own is insufficient to success - there are many other factors required (timing, capital, support/network, etc.) - yet it is required for success because having all the other factors come together without hard work to bind them leads to abject failure most often. And sure, you can talk about the few exceptions to the rule that got lucky, we can all envy those. But unless you are one those people who got lucky, you have no better strategy available to you if you want to succeed. Besides, hard work has an insane amount of benefits to it even if failure is the outcome. You learn new things all the time, you connect with people that may become your greatest supporters in the future, you grow as a person and most importantly when you look in the mirror you come to respect yourself because you choose to bear a burden that few are willing to. Most people dont take risks, most people dont work hard, and most people would rather smoke weed and chill on a couch rather than work on something that will enrich their lives be it financially or otherwise. Hard work is the only reliable strategy available for the average person to become a better version of themselves and with that create a better future for themselves AND society. So no, hard work does not "rarely" do good for the individual. It most often does good for the individual. The probelm with your statement is that you are equating "good" with "success" (mostly financial) and those two things are very very different from each other.