The Sh#% Your Parents Should Tell You

Hard Work, Luck, and Help

You need more than hard work.

People, parents in particular, will often tell you – "If you work hard enough, then..." Fill in the blank with whatever goal you want to achieve or skill you want to acquire. Whether you want to become a wealthy mo-fo or a famous bitch, whether you want to become an expert in your field or start your own business, hard work will inevitably get you there they say.

Don't believe them.

Now, I'm not saying you can accomplish your goals without hard work. You do need to put in steady and sincere effort to be able to do anything well, to see progress, to have a chance at the success you desire. Hard work is essential. But it is not enough. It never has been, and it never will be.

There are two other essential ingredients needed to achieve any goal.

One is a bit of luck.

The other is people.

Luck is an essential ingredient of success in any endeavor because we have no control over much of what happens to us. Sometimes life sends a raft of shit our way, and that raft of shit can interfere with our plans. Hell, sometimes it can chuck them right out the window and into the bottomless pit of impossibility. We could be in an accident that debilitates us. We could contract a fatal disease. We could lose a loved one. A medical emergency could bankrupt us or a natural disaster could destroy our home and all our belongings. The internet could go out for the fifth fucking time this week. Shit can happen is my point, and that shit may steer us down a path that leads us far, far from where we wanted to end up. But if we're lucky and life doesn't rain dingleberries on our dreams, our hard work just may pay off.

May pay off.

Hard work and luck aren't quite enough to ensure success either. We need that one other ingredient: people.

We may not be fully aware of this, but we do nothing completely by ourselves. It may seem like we do. When we're alone in our rooms at 2am slaving away on some project, when we're doing our damndest to get things just right, losing sleep, burning the candle at both ends, certainly we can say that the fruits of this labor are ours and ours alone. Certainly we can say that it is our hard work and dedication that has brought us as far as it has. Right?

Let's take a quick stroll through the conveniently overlooked reality here, through the silent, unassuming details that we ignore daily, routinely. Shall we?

We can start with the most basic of basics. In order to be able to be awake in your room at 2am slaving away, you need to have eaten, maybe not a lot, but your body requires sustenance. Where did that sustenance come from? If you're still living at home, maybe it came from your parents. See? Already you've gotten other people involved.

But let's say you're living alone. Where did you get your food? Likely from a store or restaurant. Maybe you cooked it yourself. Certainly, in this situation, you can still say you didn't receive any help. You're doing it all on your own. But you're not. Did you grow the vegetables you steamed or raise the livestock that became the meat you put in your dishes? Where did your seasonings come from? Odds are, someone else produced those. Someone else packaged them. Someone else brought them to your market. Your food didn't magically appear on your store shelves. Numerous others had to do their jobs in order to make food available for you. You couldn't have eaten without their help.

And what about the other things you need to be awake in your room at 2am? Are you using a computer? Where did the materials for that computer come from? Who turned those materials into parts for your CPU, for your monitor, for your keyboard? Who wrote the operating system? Who got it to the store or warehouse you bought it from? Who delivered it to your door?

The light, the electricity, the chair you sit on, the desk you write on, the home they reside in, the books you read – pick anything you use, and it's required hundreds, if not thousands of other people to get it into your hot little hands so that you can "do it all by yourself."

We do nothing alone.

Hard work is not enough. Luck is not enough. We need each other, too.

Let this knowledge humble you. Let it make you aware of the support you get from people you're apt to disregard, maybe even disrespect. Allow it to fill you with gratitude for their unseen labor.

Let this knowledge comfort you. In everything we do, we are connected to one another. Everything we own, everything we use, has passed through a multitude of hands, each clasped to the next through its labor until it reaches ours.

Let this knowledge remind you that you are more than the ends you do (or do not) manage to achieve. You are part of this grand, limitless web of humanity. You in your small, and sometimes large, ways contribute to this web's movement, to its spirit, to its progress. So, even if your hard work doesn't result in the realization of your dreams, even if luck isn't on your side, your hard work will always matter more than you'll ever really know.

So, yes, work hard to reach your goals. Yes, hope that luck will be on your side. But remember, success by any measure is a cooperative venture. You need others.

And guess what? They need you, too.

Perhaps it's time we start living this truth.