What The Fuck is Hard Work?
For those that know they should but don't know how
Scroll to Bottom for TL;DR
Here’s the deal, I’m an Asian student in my early twenties that has been raised on the belief that I need to work hard in order to amount to anything in my life. I heard this from my parents, teachers, ‘mentors’ and even my Taxi Cab driver at one point of time.
Remember this ^ banger? If y’all relate then we Baljeet fr
In a culture that is so obsessed with working hard, I figured that somebody would know what the fuck that meant - but they didn’t, and if I asked them they’d say that I’m being cheeky.
Naturally because I did not know what I was supposed to do, I latched onto the behaviors of those people that others described as ‘Hard Working’, and these were people like:
My father who was deep into the rat race and had to go to work early in the morning and come home late at night
Those classmates that never did anything except study
Relatives, friends and people in the social eye that had reached honorable positions (often by sacrificing health and social lives)
I was ready to do that, the problem was I did not know what to do after adopting that lifestyle.
I could study the whole day, cancel meeting friends, miss out on social gatherings, etc. and spend that time studying too - but I was not getting better marks than I got before. I was just giving up enjoyment with nothing to show for it.
It wasn’t until a week before my anxiety-ridden 10th Grade Board Exams1 that I realized:
Working hard doesn’t mean working all the time, it just means working consistently towards a reasonable goal or target - and that these goals/targets vary from person to person.
Let’s break it down:
Working Consistently
Showing up to practice everyday
Studying some minimum amount everyday
Reasonable Goal or Target
Do Not: Dunk after one month of Basketball Practice
Do: Stop dropping the ball while dribbling after a month of practice
Do Not: Jump 100 ranks on the academic leader board on the next test
Do: Get at least 10% more marks on the next test compared to the last one
Goal or Target: Something that is better than it is today according to a metric of your choice
I wrote 10 Articles this month, write 15 next month
If you think about it, working hard is nothing except working with a good plan.
Until next week (or sooner) :
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
By Team Coco | Watch Here
In 2010, Conan O’Brien resigned from his role as a talk show host on NBC after a scheduling conflict - as part of his exit settlement, Conan was legally prohibited from making television (or any broadcasted) appearances for a short period.
Conan, being the performer that he is, decided that this was the perfect opportunity to go on a two month, country wide comedy tour, and this is what he named it:
The film documents the journey from Conan being offered to leave NBC’s Tonight Show, to Conan starting his run on TBS’s Conan, and the period in between during which the Legally Prohibited Show took place. The impetus behind the show was not spite, or necessity, or anything like that - it was Conan's desire to be in front of an audience and make others happy.
As the tour goes on - we see Conan becoming increasingly frustrated, exhausted and irritated because of the high energy performance and hours of exhausting fan interactions after the show2. Despite his exhaustion and irritation, Conan continues to put himself in the 'line of fire' he keeps delivering the same energy on stage, he shows up everyday, he is consistent and he blows everyone away with it.
The one lesson that we must all learn from Conan is that he will fight to attain the image of himself that he loves, and come hell or high-water, he will work consistently to achieve it. The version of Conan that lives inside his head is one that lives for an audience, and one that loves making stuff - and dissonance from this version of himself makes him uncomfortable, and - to him - seems impossible.
The one lesson that we must all learn from Conan is that he will fight to attain the image of himself that he loves.
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TL;DR
Everyone tells you to work hard, no one knows how to work hard
Working hard =/= working all the time,
Working Hard =
Working Consistently
Towards a reasonable goal or target
For those of you that aren’t Indian - Board Exams are those in which the whole country writes answers to the same questions and everyone is graded according to a uniform scale, creating a reliable metric for Junior Colleges to decide your aptitude for future admission.
After a point - whenever he's seen on camera he's horizontal - he does not sit straight because he's probably too tired to do so or care
Taking a break when needed >>