Are We Trying Too Hard?

Explaining the flipside of the hard work coin

Note: The ideas and concepts for this article are from Mark Manson's #1 New York Times Bestseller, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

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Introduction

We were all taught since day one that hard work will help reach success. If at first, you don't succeed, try, try again. However, there is a point where trying hard simply decreases your chances of success. Trying too hard is actually counterproductive!

This is an attempt to convince people that there are multiple ways of achieving success and living a good life, as well as the balance of hard work and slacking off.

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Is happiness a measure of success?

So what is the answer to this important question? Simply, no. Well, not necessarily. Happiness can be determined by a number of factors of which only a small one is the success rate. Of course, this is hugely dependent on what the person thinks is important. If somebody thinks that happiness is being the best runner in the world, then, of course, achieving success in that goal would mean happiness to that person. This is why our personal values are so important in determining what makes us happy. In short, happiness is not the same thing as success.

I will give a comparative example. Person A, is towards the smarter side of people, constantly reaching for the top rung, which to him is very achievable. Person B has a learning rate on the slower side and does not do as well in his studies as he would like to. Assuming that Person A's average test score is 96% and Person B's average is 53% if they both took the same test and Person A achieved 87% and Person B achieved 68%. Who is better off? Person A obviously did better out of the two of them, but does that make him the happier man? No. Person A received a score below his expectations and is thus disappointed with his result. Person B however, received a score well above his average and thus is really excited about his result.

One of my own experiences is a good example of how our personal values play a role in our ideas of success. After being excluded from my tennis team, I vowed to get back at them. Entering the competition with a different team, I played better than I had in my life, determined to beat them. It all came down to the finals. I came second to them. At first, being disappointed, because I hadn't achieved success, I then realised that I had achieved success in a different way. My drive and determination to beat them caused me to play at my very best and improve my game in many different areas.

Success is a relative scale. Success is different to everybody. Person A's idea of success might have been achieving 100% whereas Person B's idea of success is achieving a 60%, thus their respective scores gave them their respective emotions. My idea of success changed as I understood the deeper gain from my revenge plot against my old team.

Why is this important and what does this have to do with not trying? It is important because achieving success is easier with more achievable goals. The healthiest form of success is achieving something just outside of your comfort zone and being challenged just enough so that it isn't detrimental to your wellbeing. Another thing this shows is that happiness can be a distraction from success in the way that if you really want to be the best, happiness in the ways above will only slow you down.

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The positives of suffering and commonality

You're not special. Let's be clear on that right now. Whatever people say about everyone being special, it's just a nice way of saying that nobody is. The word 'average' has just become the new standard for failure, as everybody wants to strive to be special and ahead of the curve. A counter-response to this is that some people will attempt to be most behind the curve just to prove that they are not like the majority of the population. This is also bad for obvious reasons that if I have to point them out to you, you're likely already there and you should be concerned for yourself. Those who achieve genuine success by being different succeed because they don't think of themselves as great, they think of themselves as average and find new, creative ways to stand out. The positive of being average is that you're average, which means that you have potential to improve and become great, with a little bit of thinking and good connections, the curve will start to follow you rather than the other way around.

Success among the curve is achieved through out-of-the-box thinking. Ideas that spark success are revolutionary, much like the iPhone or automobiles or the atomic bomb. Once the idea is there and developed, all you have to do is sit and watch as it rides itself into the sunset leaving behind a trail of dollar bills and copycats trying to hop on the bandwagon. Everything else becomes history.

What about suffering? Suffering and pain drive all kinds of motivation. Like my example in the previous section, I was given the boot from my old tennis team, no explanation, just boot. I felt wronged and betrayed on all levels, so what did I do? I gave it my all to best them at their own game. Dave Mustaine from the band Metallica - mentioned in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - was given similar treatment. No explanation, just boot. He also sat wondering what he had done wrong, and at the end of it, started the band Megadeth and sold over 25 million records. Despite his practical success, in his mind, he never really succeeded as Metallica still did better than Megadeth and he had been basing his success rate against them.

What is the takeaway? Success can be of your own measurement, and it can also be of public practicality. Personal success is entirely in your control, whereas practical success is determined by the competition. Which is the real success? Both. Each equally important, one must balance their attitude towards both so that they are both equally achievable.

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Choices and the Responsibility/Fault Fallacy

Our choices directly define our success. The action itself isn't all that important, it's just the mindset of choices, knowing that we chose to do this gives a more positive approach towards it.

Say Person A is kidnapped and forced to bungee-jump off the Shanghai Tower (granted the Burj Khalifa is taller but it seems impossible to jump off the top of a building with its type of structure). The consequences of failing to do so would be that he, his family and his house would be blown up. Would he be reluctant to do it? Yes. Does he really have a choice? No. This causes a negative approach towards jumping that I mentioned earlier.

In a world where that didn't happen, say Person A is preparing to break the bungee jumping world record and has chosen to jump off the Shanghai Tower. The rewards of succeeding would be that his name is printed in the History books, he wins the support of his family, friends and fans, and he gets the emotional exhilaration of jumping. Would he be reluctant to do it? No. Does he really have a choice? Yes. This causes the positive approach that I mentioned earlier.

Although the physical activity was the same, the attitudes and conditions towards it were very different. That is what caused the emotional variant. The fact that he chose to jump rather than was forced to jump changes the psychology of the entire process of information. He has no stress (or at most very little - jumping off the Shanghai Tower is not an easy feat), he is given emotional benefit and there were no consequences for failure. As such, he not only is more inclined to jump but also has a better chance of successfully jumping.

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Moving on to the Responsibility/Fault Fallacy. Another misconception, responsibility does not equal fault. Here is a scenario where they are different. In Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, he gives an example of a guy who ranted on about not being able to find a girl because he was too short. No girl actually told him he was short, no girl had the opportunity to, because he never tried in the first place. He immediately put himself down and thus never succeeded. He did not want to be responsible for his problematic height at the fear of being at fault for his problematic height.

The better example for from his book is the concept of a car accident. If I were to hit your car on purpose, for god knows what reason, I would both be at fault and responsible for the damages of your car. However, if I were to hit your car by accident, again for god knows what reason, I would only be responsible for the damages to your car, but not at fault.

There are many other examples of these two cases, a few more would be briefly:

• A judge holding the trial for a crime is responsible for the crime but not at fault

• When your three-year-old kid spills hot chocolate on your jeans, you're not at fault but it's your responsibility to live with it

• When lightning strikes a tree and it crashes into your window, it's your responsibility to repair it, but not your fault

• If one of the other band members doesn't show up to a concert, its not your fault, but it's your responsibility to find a replacement

• If a kindergarten student draws on the wall with crayons, it's not the teacher's fault, but it's the teacher's responsibility to manage the cleanup.

The main feature that differentiates responsibility from fault is that fault defines the past, and responsibility defines the present. To relate it to the topic, fault is the outcome of choices that have been made in the past, responsibility is the outcome of choices that are being made in the present.

Every single action you make requires a choice, whether it's conscious or subconscious. You are choosing to read this article, at the pace that you're reading it. Upon reading that you may choose to speed up the pace of your reading, or slow it down. See what I did there? Every action you make requires a choice, and our actions influence our progress towards success.

What's the takeaway? Choices influence everything. To maximise outcome, one must balance the risk, the reward, the stakes and the consequences in order to make the choice that best leads to success.

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The importance of failure and being wrong

Everybody makes mistakes. It's a fact. Nobody's perfect, not even the greats. Thomas Edison failed 1000 times to create the lightbulb. J.K. Rowling and her multi-million dollar story were denied by many publishing agencies at first. Not even Steve Jobs had it easy. Everybody, in order to be ahead of the curve, had to innovate and invent their path, which of course leads to mistakes, as nobody has ever tried it before. Pushing the limits and making mistakes is actually what made them successful because after making the mistakes and learning from them, they realise that their goals are realistic and achievable and that they would stop at nothing to achieve them.

"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than 'good job'."

Terence Fletcher, Whiplash

And he couldn't be more right.

In the movie Whiplash, Terence Fletcher was a maestro conductor at Shaffer university. He conducted the school's studio jazz band to win competition after competition. His philosophy was based on that of the great Jo Jones: pushing people beyond their limits, at any cost, will grant success. He rightly believed that unfairly giving consolation and credit, harms the path of success.

This is proven by the story of Charlie Parker, a jazz musician who screwed up a solo at the Kansas City Reno Club. Jones throws a cymbal at him as he's laughed off the stage. According to the movie, he cried himself to sleep, and then the next morning, with no remorse, had a newfound drive in him, a motivation to never be laughed at again. He practiced and practiced and a year later he returned to the Reno and played the best saxophone solo the world had ever heard.

This philosophy, while very violent and somewhat traumatising, is true simply due to the fact that failure drives us to learn, to be better. This is why failure is so important in the making of success. Had Jones instead went to Parker and said that everything was alright and that he did a good job, Parker would have instead gone home thinking he did a fair job and the Bird never would have been born.

At the roots of people's success, we find failure, mistakes and misfortunes that bring the drive to want to succeed so badly, and nothing was to stop them from reaching their goals.

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Rejection, boundaries and how to build trust

One of the most commonly given advice is to be open to opportunities, open to experiences and open to anything that's offered to you. However, Mark Manson rightly points out that we also have to reject some things, otherwise life serves no purpose. He makes the point that we need to balance our acceptances with our rejections, otherwise, we become lopsided and lose our meaning and purpose.

People mostly avoid rejection as a way to make themselves feel better. Avoiding rejection gives a sense of a directionless path which has no worries. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. In order for any of our aspects in life to be meaningful, we have to prioritise and put in the effort to said aspects and make them stand out from everything else.

Too much acceptance is detrimental, too much rejection is detrimental, but a balance of both leads to a sustainable path towards a brighter future.

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Coming back to balance, there is a line when it comes to dedication. There is a point where being dedicated just becomes being desperate, and funnily enough, we've been aware of this for centuries.

One of the most successful plays in history tells the story of two families at war with each other for undisclosed, behind-the-scenes reasons. The children of each family, a boy and a girl, of which are the centres of both families, meet, fall in love and decide it would be a good idea to get married with the 24 hours of meeting each other - because apparently, people do that. They marry in secret but eventually word spreads and the families come to blows with each other. The girl, around this time, also develops another Nobel Prize-winning idea and decides to do what dogs do best, play dead. The strange part is that she's surprisingly good at it and even fools her husband, who for undisclosed, behind-the-scenes reasons, did not know of her dumb plan. He decides that the only way to see her is to kill himself (the IQ of lovers back then is really showing off), so he kills himself for real. The girl then decides that right after the boy kills himself would be a good time to reveal that she's alive. Big surprise to her: he's dead. So she decides that the only way to see him is to kill herself (the IQ of lovers back then is really showing off again) and thus both of them die and both families are torn over it.

Great story right? Well, it is one of Shakespeare's best selling plays so you bet it was good. Mark Manson explains that the two star-crossed idiots were too dedicated to their love to the point where it becomes a pain to watch. They get so desperate to be with each other 24/7 that they ultimately kill themselves to achieve it. That's hardcore. The fact that they were so determined to be together ultimately resulted in a tragedy.

So how does one spot the line? This is something in which people in the modern world call tryharding. Over-trying to reach their goal which is actually more detrimental than under-trying. Over-trying sets you back further than you were without trying for the reason that you can't control everything, and by trying to, you're burning yourself out. That's why most weathermen don't take their jobs too seriously, because nobody can predict the weather, they can only provide an educated guess, so while they're on the air, they might as well grab a laugh.

Tryharding is often mocked and disregarded but for the wrong reasons. People mock them for their attitudes and efforts which happen to be the two things that they're doing right. They should instead be disregarded for their extensive methods of achievement and their mentality towards certain issues. Not seeing these issues and going on with the existing plan can not only negatively impact your path to success, but also your existing lifestyle and path. This is also the sad story of most gamblers. Putting too much into a high-risk, high-reward opportunity and losing everything. It's all downhill from there.

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The final area of this section: how do we build trust, and how does that help towards success?

Success, even with personal goals, is almost always a team effort. Surrounding yourselves with people you trust who are willing to help you out will be extremely beneficial to your life and your progress towards success.

My girlfriend, in her own eyes, wasn't a lot of things (I obviously thought she was the best, but there was no convincing her - she, therefore, suffers from the Responsibility/Fault Fallacy). Even though she didn't think very much of herself, or try to stand out of a crowd, I was always instantly able to spot her, like she had a beacon or an aura. I would always try my very hardest to help her get through hard times I showered her with all the love I could possibly give, and I do think I made some sort of impact on her because of it. She was able to trust me, and thus felt better about herself. Now I believe she does very well and isn't as insecure as she used to be (and I like to think that I had something to do with that but I guess I'll never know).

At the same time, she was also a huge help to me. Sometimes, when I'm feeling down I would be able to talk to her for hours on end about literally anything. Talking to her helped me calm down and it honestly made my day most times. She was an amazing listener and I heavily thank her for being able to talk through stuff with me, helping me bear some of my issues. I could trust and confide in her, and when I did it not only relieving stress for myself, but it also lifted me emotionally and spiritually.

Having circles of friends, family, or loved ones there to guide you and support you makes life 1000 times easier because no matter what, they will be there for you and will help you take some of the blows you're facing.

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Conclusion

What are the key points of this topic? Balance and standing out together make success. Being innovative while not over-the-top about it. Being curious but not destructive. Being responsible but not faulty. Being dedicated but not desperate. Unfortunately, nobody can be told what success is or how it's achieved in a particular circumstance because it's all relative. Success can be a fine line that separates two ends of failure. Success can be the grey area in a black-white failure gradient. Success can be finishing your vegetables before 8:30. Success can be designing the spaceship that will take us to the stars.

If your balance is correct and your ideas and thinking stand out to a good degree, then your success will be what you make it to be, and what you make will be a success.