Attacking the Work Ethic

Perhaps it is time the 'work ethic' was redefined and its idea reclaimed from the banal men who invoke it. Studs Terkel

Jehovah gave his worshippers the supreme example of ideal laziness; after six days of work he rested for all eternity. Paul LaFargue 1893

Hard work has nothing to do with success. It does not produce success. It does not sustain success. And it certainly does not reverse a failure. It is passion that drives success. Love for one's activity is infinitely more important to creating success than hard work. Yet for some twisted reason, parents, teachers, and leaders insist on emphasizing the importance of hard work.

If you emphasize hard work to the youth, you will create a generation of most obedient servants. However, if you inspire passion in them, the sky is the limit for what can be accomplished.

P.S. I came across a funny essay today by Famous Brett Watson entitled The Protestant Laziness Ethic.

www.lazyway.net 

Comments

[Amy]

Interesting notion...

[Dave B]

Interesting notion? Really, its hardly profound, in fact I'd go as far as saying that its almost banal.

I guess its a teaser for Fred's book - but he'll have to offer something more 'interesting' than that to pique my interest.

[Jerry Kuntz]

Does success have anything to do with skills? Do skills require practice? Case closed.

[Fred Gratzon]

Dear David B,
If you think passion is so banal, what would you call the concept of hard work? All I ever hear all day long is that hard work is the key to success and I rarely hear any mention of the value of pursuing one's passion. Hard work and passion aren't the same thing. Hard work is for drones; passion is for artists.

Dear Jerry,
Don't be so hasty in closing the case before hearing a rebuttal. Of course, skill has value. But practice without passion is empty. You can practice the violin from now until the cows come home but you'd end up a mediocre violinist at best. That's becasue your performances would only be mechanical sequences of flawlessly executed notes. (Snore.)

But if you were passionate about the violin, you would never consider the practicing of it to be work. And your music would be an expression of that love, not to mention a joy to listen to.

Case reopened.

[Aaron Headly]

My $0.02.
In my work (I set up computer systems for medium-sized newspapers) I often come up with easy little solutions to things that have been long-term annoyances to the people who work at whatever paper I'm at that week.
I am usually accused of being very clever for coming up with these little tricks, but I always claim to be lazy, not clever. Lazy people tend to figure out the best/easiest ways to do things.

[Dave H]

Hard work is enphasized in school for one reason there are things in life that your not going to enjoy but still need to be done. I'm not saying that they haven't taken it too far, what I mean is sometimes hard work needs to be done. Pursue what your passionate about but get what needs to be done to follow your passion done.

[Fred Gratzon]

I think school would be a lot more successful, if teachers simply turned the work into play. Then any kid would get into the task at hand because it no longer felt like work. Kids would learn better, teachers would enjoy their jobs more, and society would benefit more. To talk about gaining knowledge in terms of HARD WORK is painfully uncreative and, frankly, ignorant. Many kids will instinctively run away because work feels horrible if you don't love what you are doing or would rather be doing something else. When I think back to my school days, I learned the most from those classes that were fun and play oriented. There isn't a school subject on God's green earth that can't be presented in an enjoyable and passion-inspiring way.

[Chui Tey]

How true! It is an eye-opener getting my kids to pick after their toys. If I was stern with them, they'd do it reluctantly - since it was work. Making it into fun is not easy, since you have to be creative all the time to turn it into an interesting play. Plus it doesn't always work, sometimes, it ends up in a bigger mess!

[Andreas]

I think that you can work hard passionately. But too often, passion is destroyed by senseless hard work - work, where you don't see the end, you don't understand what you are doing and especially why you are doing it.

If work is challenging, and playful, we learn better and faster and than, work is more fun, it becomes a wow, and we do it with passion or engagement or however you want to call it.

If, however you don't see the sense in what you are doing, well, your passion will go off like a burning match in a strong wind. Boom - gone.

[Pavel]

I think if someone is passionate about something - the "hard work" comes out naturally. Of course "brute force" work is sometimes necessary for certain tasks in life(when you are in demotivated state for some reason), but the point is probably that hard work alone isn't good objective in your life/career (just to get money for example). You always get alot worser results if you aren't passionate about what you are doing, because you aren't so proactive - you don't care too much about what you are doing, you just want money - but money can never be such a motivator as passion. That's my opinion on this..

[Brian Parry]

Well we all knowitwas passion that built the pyramids. Duh. Case closed.

[Brian Parry]

We all know it was passion that built the pyramids. Duh. Case closed.

[Gabe]

There are millions of people passionate about basketball, but only one michael jordan.

In my opinion, passion doesn't lead to work ethic. It's work ethic that leads to passion.