I remember a ritual with my parents telling me every night, “If there’s one thing you should do, it should be to never, ever, ever, ever give up.” They would make me say it back to them and make sure I grit my teeth when I said it.
For the past year or so, I’ve been reflecting on a concept that I feel I’ve heard over and over again; something that seems to become my solution to everything. For me, “effort” has always been ingrained in me, almost as an idol.
But, I would say that many of the times I feel the furthest ahead of people, which is rare, are when I put in the bare minimum effort.
It’s the times when I get the 89.5 perfectly, and I see other people spending more hours to get to a 92, while I spend those extra hours working on something that has higher use.
Some of my favorite moments have come from understanding the true goal of things and not having to play into the silly games where effort becomes the end instead of the means.
But “effort” has become a universal solution: “This isn’t going well. What if I put in more effort?”
The difficulty with “effort” is that it’s almost like an input, like an energy token. You can never truly deny that it wasn’t part of the solution.
Let’s say you looked at a field of hay bales arranged in perfect rows and columns, and your job was to count them. You spent the whole day walking and counting them one by one. Instead, you should have climbed a ladder, and instead of counting them by hand, you should have just multiplied the rows by the columns.
Yet you could still make the case that more effort is still part of that solution.
That’s what makes it so difficult: when “effort” becomes your constant solution, you end up having more problems.
And the problems aren’t just limited to the ones I’ve mentioned.
When I would long snap for my team, the snaps I put the most effort into would be the worst. My hands would be tense. My palms would be sweaty. Same thing on the golf course.
When “effort” becomes king, you find yourself trying to maximize things that aren’t meant to be maximized (how do I brush my teeth in the perfect way?).
It creates multiple different priorities for you. And “priority” didn’t become plural until the 1900s (at least that’s what they say).
You can’t maximize everything. Sadly (and I know this from experience), you can’t be jacked, rich, spiritual, a family man, a great friend, and have fun hobbies, all at once. Maybe instead you should try to double or triple dip in one activity, with the mindset that there are only one or two real priorities.
But I’ll leave that for another blurb. I’m in no place to give advice on it or anything.
A concept as simple as “effort” seems to me remarkably complex and confusing, yet intensely rewarding to contemplate. Even writing this essay has been gratifying
