Lately, while I've been working out, people around me keep telling me I'm working hard at it. The truth is it feels less like hard work and more like running daily quests in a game—upper body today, lower body tomorrow—and on the days I can't train, I'm left feeling like I missed out on a quest reward.
Somewhere along the way, the thought that I should be trying harder started to weigh on me, and I began to wonder whether that thought was pushing me too far. So I looked back to see whether I'd ever felt this way about anything before.
The Me of the Past
Thinking back to my school years, I didn't even work hard at studying, the one thing that mattered most. Through high school—the years that mattered most of all—I lived in a dormitory run like the military, and maybe it was sheer defiance, but I could never bring myself to focus on studying.
Back then the dorm rules and daily routine meant shaving your head to 12mm or shorter, running laps on the field every morning at seven, and standing for roll call at the start and end of every school day. Phones were banned, and after classes we were locked in the dorm study hall, where anyone caught dozing off was called out and beaten with a sack cloth.
Maybe it was being forced to study inside that oppressive environment. I didn't even want to work hard at it.
Once I got to university, the sense of release pushed studying aside all over again. Cramming the night before exams was routine, and I ran around with friends, partying hard as if to make up for high school.
If partying hard counts as working hard at something, then maybe that's one of the things I've actually worked hard at.
And once I got a job as a developer, if I ask myself whether I worked hard at becoming a skilled, impressive engineer—the answer is no.
I do think I've always worked hard at whatever was handed to me, but I don't think I worked hard at becoming a skilled, impressive engineer. I keep telling myself I should study hard, and then I drift along at it like it's just a hobby.
I've been sorting things into what I worked hard at and what I didn't—but can I even define what working hard means? It made me curious about what other people are working hard at, and how.
On Working Hard
I think working hard may be relative. One person may believe they're giving it everything, while to someone else it looks like it falls short.
My wife goes to an orchestra meetup every Friday. Watching her, I always tell her to work hard at it, and I nag her—practice at home a bit! Try harder!
Maybe my wife is already giving it everything she has while raising a child at the same time. But from where I stand, it feels like there's room to push harder.
Thinking about it now, I wonder whether "working hard" also calls for the consideration of seeing it from the other person's side.
If so, was whipping myself to work harder a failure to show myself that same consideration? Or was I really not working hard at all?
I keep wondering whether it's right to go on driving myself and pressuring myself to work harder.
Lately, coming across all the advice that rest matters too, there are times I tell myself, "Right! They said resting matters too!" and take a break.
Can resting well also count as resting hard?
What does it mean to work hard? It's a question that may have no answer, and one I've been turning over a lot lately.
On Working Hard and Doing It Well
Without having found an answer to working hard, I also spend a lot of time thinking about how to do things well. I think doing it well matters as much as working hard at it.
I've been going to the gym since last year, and I keep running into the same people who train at the same hour.
Seeing the ones who show up every single time, I think, "Look at them, they never miss a day! I should work hard too."
But after a while, watching them again, there are a few whose approach to training strikes me as off.
Seeing the person running with a phone in one hand, or the person using a machine in a form anyone could tell was wrong, made me think that working hard isn't enough—doing it well matters.
The worst are the ones who show up faithfully and then spend most of their time sitting down on their phone or chatting with someone else.
Of course, I imagine that to someone else's eyes I look like the one with bad form who isn't working hard.
Thinking about this, I wonder—at work, and in raising my child—whether I'm working hard, whether I'm doing it well, and what I should be doing.
What does it mean to work hard and do it well?
This one may have no answer either, but lately I keep repeating "work hard and do it well" to myself like a mantra.
"Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well." - Charles Dickens -