BUILDING CORE VALUE SERIES

HARD WORK

Hard work is defined as a very great deal of effort and endurance. An effort is a vigorous or determined attempt while endurance is the ability to bear or tolerate unpleasant or difficult processes or situations without giving way. 

Thence hard work is the exertion of a great deal of vigorous or determined attempt and possession of the abilities to bear unpleasant or difficult processes without giving way or giving up until the desired end is achieved! 

There are certain key components of hard work:

1. Vigor – physical strength and good health 
2. Determination – the quality of being firm and purposeful 
3. Passion – excitement 
4. Attempts – efforts to achieve or complete something however difficult 
5. Forbearance – Patient self-control, restraint, and tolerance
6. Difficult processes or situations 
7. Never-giving up mindset

Hard work is one of the virtues that’s vastly disdained, discountenanced, downplayed, and disregarded by a very large number of people today both young and elderly. Life has become so fast-paced with more people achieving enviable feats at very young ages. Hence the misconception that success is achievable overnight. Sleep a dime-naire and wake a billionaire! That’s heresy! 

Yes, there may be some rare cases of sheer luck of stumbling into opportunities but I can guarantee you those are the exceptions and never the rule. Even in such instances, if the opportunity is not adequately met with preparedness, whatever overnight success achieves is oftentimes short-lived and worthless. 

There are also those who have leveraged their parents’ hard work and seemed to have stepped into success without much effort of theirs. I still dare to tell you there is no true success without hard work even for those categories of people. It takes just a study of their lifestyles to know.

The majority of the highly celebrated superstars are thoroughly hardworking in order to sustain their level of success. Even those who engage in illegal ventures to obtain wealth are hardworking at their games. They’re awake, daringly dining with the devil when the lazy ones see a lion on the road and would rather sleep.

Please note that any attainment via illegal or ungodly means does not ever end well. I’m not at all advocating illegalities, just to buttress the fact that to achieve any feat at all, hard work is a prerequisite. So why not rather exert your energy on worthy and sustainable ventures that guarantee genuine and peaceful success? 

It’s so disheartening that every day I come across some young people who do not want to exert themselves in any way. Putting in an effort is considered burdensome and several would rather just rely on reaping the benefits of someone else’s efforts or beg for handouts rather than be willing to go the extra mile to attain relevance and success. 

They forget that nobody truly succeeds without hard work (check out the components highlighted above). No destiny can be achieved by downloading movie apps on your mobile phone and habitually spending every spare second watching the celebrities who don’t sleep or play as you do, who daily exert and deprive themselves in order to produce what you want to spend precious hours to watch. Mind you, every second you lazy around watching them, increases and fattens their bank accounts. Who does the work get the money! 

I personally flaw some successful folks who pride themselves as mentors to these young ones but only project their end results and trivialize the process which is the true bedrock of their achievements.

Preachers emphasize the promises of God while neglecting more so on the covenants which demand such virtues as work, faith, patience, endurance, resilience in the face of stiff resistance, and undying passion which are essential ingredients to actualizing the promises of God. Hence when the members merely confess these lofty promises to a level without seeing any results, frustrations, unbelief, rebellion, and backsliding set in. 

I also see Parents who deprive their children of basic home training and don’t engage them in house chores such as cleaning up after themselves, sweeping, washing plates, and taking out the trash, all in the bid to ensure ‘my children won’t suffer the things I did’. We forget that being responsible for the cleanliness of the home we live in is where training in hard work, responsibility, and taking ownership starts and that the things we ‘suffered’ had built in us the characters that propelled us to the success we’ve attained today. And if our children must grow responsibly, duplicate, build upon and multiply our legacies, they must be equipped with the same characters and virtues. 

Hard work is an honorable virtue that guarantees success and great exploits when applied to any inspired vision, goal, or venture in partnership with mental prowess and divinity. You become unstoppable and challenges become your propeller to flights to heights only eagles attain.

Can we have a change of attitude towards hard work from today and our community and nation will be the better for it? Please let’s all rise up today and declare war on laziness (physical and mental), be committed to healthy living, and apply hard work to everything our hands or mind find to do.

God bless you!