“You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself” — Alan Alda
I often hear people around me complaining, “Why can't I get the reward for my hard work when some people can succeed without doing anything?”
It is difficult to explain, but your success is not necessarily proportional to your hard work. Many times what you see is only the surface. Understand that life is not perfect. If you blindly compare, you will be disappointed.
There is, in fact, no comparison. We are born into different families with different backgrounds, meaning everyone's life will be different. You can only adjust your mentality and work hard. Leave the rest to fate; but believe that life will not disappoint those who work hard.
Every one of you will have moments of anguish, unjust and despair. It may seem that you are the only one abandoned by fate. But when you are suffering, look back and think about it. There will be people who suffer more than you.
Life is painful because you are overly focused on chasing after things that don’t matter, which often leads to you ignoring what’s truly important. Many things in life cannot be explained. Some journeys come with extended struggle, while others may turn for the better in an instant.
What you do in life may not come to fruition instantly. Hence you should not expect you will be rewarded immediately. Your effort in doing things should be to spend your time meaningfully and not receive gratification instantly.
Just like going to the gym, you cannot expect to visit the gym once, and you will lose ten kilos. No one can guarantee success. But believe that what you want, so long as you keep working hard for it, day after day, year after year, you will eventually get it. Know that it is the journey of getting it that makes it meaningful. The harder it is for you to get it, the more you will cherish it.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou
Don’t ignore the significance of working hard in the first place. Some tasks may seem fruitless initially, but the harder you work, the better you will be. When you keep doing it, one day, it will produce results that surprise you.
Forget about instant gratification. If you are too eager for results, you will be too prone to disappointment. It is easy to end up giving up. You will succeed only when you can learn not to have expectations.
You must understand that many things are destined. You must overcome expectations and accept outcomes that are not your desired result. Don't be affected by it. Keep loving what you do. Your success will begin only when you no longer have expectations but continue to do things in pursuit of self-growth.
Don’t be overly obsessed with the outcomes; just enjoy the process. For the meaning is in the pursuit, in the journey itself. The results are just milestones to mark the end of the process.
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” — Pele
Life is short, don't waste time on meeting expectations. Just do it and keep doing it.
I wrote this to motivate myself of my journey on Substack. Somethings cannot be rushed; you just have to be patience. Like me, Zen!
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The great thing about being in the moment, enjoying the process, is that the action will be only a fraction of your gains. You’ll mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually travel to new heights, more intriguing destinations and meet people you would never have thought possible.
Process oriented goals are also much more fulfilling than outcome oriented goals. If you want to lose weight for example, instead of saying you want to lose X lbs/kgs in a certain amount of time, just think of exercising X times a week or only eating out X times a month. Regardless of how much weight you lose, this will make you healthier.