One of the biggest debates people get into nowadays is ‘which is better? Hard work or smart work?’. According to me, this is one of the most useless discussions people can get themselves into. You ask me why? Because both of them go hand in hand. You can’t achieve great things or perfection just by following one of them. Both of them have their advantages, however, both of them have a few disadvantages if one is done without the other.
Hard work refers to the work which is done with extreme effort and endurance. It is a well known saying that ‘Hard work is the keyhole to success’, however, it’s not true if hard work is done alone.
Smart work refers to the work which is done in a smart way. This means, using the power of your brain instead of putting in extra efforts or working for hours. Although this does make sense, smart work can have many disadvantages if done only by itself.
Disadvantages Of Hard Work (If Only Hard Work Is Done)
- It Takes A Toll: Hard work requires a lot of persistence and determination. Let’s suppose, a person works seven days a week and gets a lot of work done because of it. He will be seen as a model employee and will get appreciation and possibly a raise. However, the organization will build more expectations from him and he won’t be able to live up to them just by the implementation of his hard work, The person will have to work day and night to keep up with his record and this will seriously damage his health and his personal life.
- It Makes You Good, But Only In One Thing: Hard work makes you good, but only in one thing and that is hard work itself. You will create a habit of working for 13-14 hours a day or 7 days a week and this will seriously hamper your learning curve. You will contain yourself in just doing one thing every day and forget about all the other things you could’ve learned. You are going to develop a thinking that hard work is everything and you’re gonna achieve greatness with it. And believe me when I tell you, this thinking is wrong.
- It Seriously Harms Your Health: As already mentioned above, hard work takes a toll. It requires a lot of time and persistence. Most of the times you’ll find yourself sacrificing your sleep. Now, we all know how important it is to get at least 8 hours of sleep to stay healthy, happy, and active, however, most of the hard workers will tell you that they need only 2-3 hours to sleep and they can stay active. This is all in their head as they have forced their bodies into these conditions. Hard workers usually consume energy drinks to compensate for the sleep that they sacrificed and they think that nothing is wrong with their health. In spite of all this, their body does react and it reacts in a negative way. You’ll start noticing dark circles and other health-related problems in their bodies due to less sleep and the use of energy drinks.
Disadvantages Of Smart Work (If Only Smart Work Is Done)
- It Makes You Lazy: If you make a habit of smart work, you’ll eventually start thinking that smart work is a supreme power and you don’t need to work as hard as other people. This thinking is wrong as it’ll make you lazy because of just sitting around and using your brain all day for finding an easy way of doing everything. I know his sounds good and enticing, however, it’ll make your life very boring and uninteresting.
- It’ll Give You A Feeling Of Superiority: Since you’ll get used to smart work for doing everything, you’ll start thinking that you are superior to people as you are smarter than them. This shouldn’t be the case as you’ll start becoming more and more careless by thinking that you have a lot of time and you can solve any problem with your smart work.
- It Also Harms Your Health: Since you’ll get lazy and lose the will to do any physical work, you’ll start harming your health. Physical work is important for your body and just using your brain won’t help you in living a happy life. Just think before you fall on the path of self-harm due to something you thought was good for you.
Conclusion
Now, this article is not a rant about hard work and smart work. I think both of them are useful, only if used together. You have to work hard to make yourself more disciplined and responsible in life. Smart work comes into play when it takes away some of the intensity of hard work. My motive is to help people in understanding the fact that hard work and smart work can make a great weapon if they are used together. They both cancel out each other’s disadvantages and makes you work with excellence. I hope this article was helpful and my message got through to the people who need it.