“Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.”

This famous quote of Kahlil Gibran had a profound influence on me. It also reminds me of an anecdote about the importance of work in our lives.

God, grant me hell.

Once, a person, after his death was sent to god. God rose up from his seat and stretched his hand, seeing the dead person entering his office. The dead person was shown a comfortable sofa. He sat with uneasiness. He appeared hesitant. Scenting his uneasiness, God asked, 

‘If a mortal commits more sins than good deeds, he will go to hell. If a man commits more good deeds, than sins, he will go to heaven. These are ordinary instances. In your case,  the good deeds and the sins you committed during your life time are equal in number. Unable to decide where to put you, the authorities of heaven and hell, sent you here.’

The God cleared his throat and said, ‘Sinners in hell, depending on the type of sin will be subjected to several kinds of spine chilling punishments. Additionally, they will be made to work day and night, barring a few hours for sleep. That means, hell is all work and punishments. 

In contrast to this,  heaven is all comfort, joy and mirth. Delicious food served by beautiful dames. Dancing girls mesmerize you with their dances. Suffice to say all the comforts will be at your beck and call. You need not work at all.

The dead man nodded his head in negation. ‘Lord, I may be pardoned for saying your expectation is wrong.’God was startled . To say god was shocked would be appropriate. But god recovered quickly . Stared at the dead man perplexedly .  

‘ Lord,’ the dead man said. ‘you said, in heaven there will not be work, all comfort, joy and mirth. A life without work is as good as hell. I pray with folded hands with all reverence to grant me hell.

Whether the god granted him heaven or hell is immaterial. But the reason why he wanted to go to hell is quote convincing and true. 

Why Achievers make Work as their habit?

Achievers know the fruits of Hard work are sweet. Every bit of work that takes them towards their goals, will create a sense of achievement and fulfillment in them. This feeling is so strong, their confidence levels soar to new heights. With heightened confidence levels, self esteem also increases. With this achievers will raise their bar in order to venture in to new challenges. This in turn paves makes them look in to new avenues. This way sense of achievement opens the gates for new innovations.

With self- esteem in the arsenal, an achiever finds no heights are impossible to ascend. No depths are impossible to dive in to. It’s due to his adherence to work, an achiever seeks new goals and ambitions. This in turn creates a purpose and meaning to life.

Once the life is bound with a meaning and purpose, an achiever bubbles with ambitions and a strong will to achieve them. He  acquires a drive that makes him shoot ahead.Work makes any achiever a tiger that tasted blood. This attitude makes them unstoppable and  they look for other adventures, which makes them ever busy. 

The habit of working makes achievers not only busy, but also makes them a connoisseurs in the right working methodology. They will be in a position to be able to discriminate between the real and illusory, the truth and reality. And above all they acquire a power of turning intention in to positive action. 

Achievers do not have the habit of passing the buck. In the event of a failure or a debacle in the process of achieving their goals, they do not hesitate to accept their mistakes magnanimously. Because they have immense faith on their capabilities. They firmly believe  as long as they are ready to work hard, success will be in their hands, if not now, tomorrow it’s a certainty. 

No one knows better than an achiever, that nothing on its own accord gets done.  If a thing has to be done, one has to work. Work by the concerned person, not by any other person will work. This is the fundamental work ethic .

Mistakes are quite possible in everybody’s life. If a commoner meets a failure, he gets depressed. Where as an achiever who is gifted with a special quality known as ‘Resilience’ will get back to his original position and resumes his work with renewed vigour  and enthusiasm.  Resilience is the quality closely linked with self confidence. And a complete confidence on one’s ability to work hard. 

Work is the central point around which an achiever’s life revolves.  Achievers are true to themselves. To be true to one’s self means, having the knowledge about their strengths and weaknesses. Achievers will not enter the realms which are beyond their abilities. Instead, they show their mettle in which they are competent. They direct all their endeavors and never leave any stone unturned with their hard work. 

The very word ‘Work’ creates a shudder in some people. They think work is always associated with pain. Is it true? No, its not true. The only way to get away from the feeling, ‘Work means Pain’ is to learn how to enjoy work. And to enjoy work one has to choose the work intelligently. Its only then one can challenge the work. Facing, Challenges will build one’s character. One who avoids challenges will be treated as a coward who shies away hard work. 

Here are the people who challenged the challenges and won for themselves a page in the history books. All they have done is, they gave their best, never, even for a moment thinking about the outcome. They accepted their mistakes magnanimously and changed their mode of work that suits to achieve success. Never they grumbled. Never they complained. 

People, who achieved greatness toil harder than anybody else. See these example below.

The legendary cello player Pablo Casals, even at the ripe age of 95 years, never missed a single day of practice. When  he was asked by a press reporter on his 95 th birthday , why he practices religiously his cello, Pablo Casals  replied that he thought , he was progressing. 

Robert H. Schuller, in his book, ‘Tough times never last , but tough people do’, says, ‘Success is spelled  W- O – R – K.

Work and success are intertwined with each other.

Work and success should not be treated as separate entities. One can’t be without the other. Work lends a meaning to life. It’s beyond imagination to think a life sans work. Life becomes stale and dull without work. Once the life becomes dull, curiosity and enthusiasm will perish. Without curiosity,  the inventions, innovations and discoveries of Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton and many more legendary scientists would not have come in to light. 

Successful people attribute their success to hard work, not to miracles or luck.

It’s a common belief, successful people are blessed with superhuman powers and intelligence. It’s partially true. The fact is they work harder than anyone can imagine. They carve out more time  by sleeping less.  From Olympic champions to Nuclear scientists, believe in sweating out. It doesn’t mean, intelligence is of no use. It clearly says, mere intelligence without hard work never worked out. Nor going to work at any time.

Another trait of successful people is, they never  rely 100 percent on their mindboggling  inner speciall talents. They intelligently mix their talents with hard work.

Michael Jordan, the NBA legend, during off seasons will neither take the things easy nor feel complacent . He will take hundreds of jump shots as if he is going to participate in an international prestigious basketball game. Jackson, Jordan’s coach says , Jordan’s greatness lies in his knowledge that he has to work harder and constantly improve in order to be Numero – Uno. This speaks all about the importance of work.

Now see the mind boggling work patterns of Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks .

Besides his normal 13 working hours, works from home also. It’s not all. He works on Sundays too. 

Mark Cuban

Owner of Dallas Mavericks did not go on a vacation for seven long years.

Our own Indra Nooyi

Pepsi CEO, the most powerful woman in the world of business, used to work from midnight to 5 am, to earn money to study at Yale. Her hard working nature comes in to fore from her own words, ‘I wish I have 35 hours a day’.

History is replete with such people who made their way to the pinnacles of success just with Hard work. We should know that success will not come in a gold platter. Success has to be grabbed through hard work. 

No substitute for hard work.

Researchers world over, through their extensive researches established the fact, even the most gifted people need to shed their sweat for a considerable number of years to get noticed by the world. No one in the world became famous overnight. 

Those who stood by the test of the time, reached their goals. Others stayed back staring at the wiiners.   So greatness is not a commodity that can be bought from the shelves of the Malls. Greatness is not a thing that is passed on from generation to next generation. 

Finesse through work

Working with an expectation of reward will not work. Work harder, goals will come to you and shake hands with you. The more you work, the more ambitions and aspirations will crop up. That’s the magic of work. It should be borne in mind that when an opportunity knocks on your door, you have to get up from your bed, go to the door and unlatch the door to allow the opportunity to come in. If you fail to do this much of hard work, the opportunity leaves in search of another door. The panacea for success or the Mantra for ascending the peaks of glory is Work. Hard work. Nothing short of hard work.

The world belongs to those who work. Who perform. Who toil. People who work hard are the Time beaters. They have an uncanny knack of squeezing more time in the existing number of hours. This gives an opportunity for them to stay ahead of others. Hard working people are self motivated. They neither wait for other’s approval nor validation. They are proactive by nature. It’s through hard work, hard working people test their limits. They always direct their endeavors to beat themselves. They are their own competitors. They are not the ones to become complacent after a huge success.. Every time they put up an exemplary performance, they raise their bar.  Above all, hard working people are blessed with the quality of adjusting to any type of conditions in a less time. They never oppose changes. They mould themselves adjust to the frequently changing times easily without any fuss.

Intelligence may fail you, but hard work will never fail you.