I’m sure we all heard the term ‘working hard or working smart’. I use to think that the only way that you’re going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it, I’m not so sure anymore. In this world, there’re people that work very little but make a lot of money, and there’re many people that work a lot, but make very little money; I’m sure we all want to be in the first category that work very little but make a lot…then again it’s easier said than done.
I’m not sure which category I belong to, if you’d ask, I’d say the later one, but at the same time like to think that I belong in the first category, if not now, maybe someday. If you ask me, what’s my job title? I’d say I’m the clean up crew at my work, a miscellaneous person because I’ve to do things that people can’t do (sometimes I fell like they don’t want to do); lately I’ve been asking myself, it is worth it? Is it worth my time because here I’ve to do their work, while they do other stuff that I won’t go into detail. Let us just say that many times I’m working hard, while others are working smart by delegating their work that they couldn’t do to me; sometimes-knowing more is not always a good thing.
Another thing is blogging, I blog because I love to write and not even thinking about putting Ads on my blog, which I’ve had offered but I’ve my mind set that I’ll never put Ads on my blog (sounds stupid, but that’s my philosophy). I’ve noticed lately that there are many blogs ( scraper sites) that set up with many Ads and linking to many of my posts that might have the key words of ‘Laos, Thai, 100 Vanh, Vietnamese family, Hmong, Thai tattoo, Ghost, Fashion…etc’ (Darly sites are exception that I’m happy for her to link, and also any bloggers such as myself). The owners of these blogs (scraper sites) don’t have to do any writing, just searching, obviously, I’m the one that have to work hard, but they’re working smart by taking my work, and also collecting Ads revenue for every hit that they get. Is that fair? It’s like farming on someone’s back which these (scraper sites) are set up solely for the purpose of earning revenue through advertising. I guess it’s somewhat annoying to me, but not enough for me to do something about it, if you’ve noticed, I’ve (cc) Creative Commons, which is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike, which I want to share my work with others. Did these blogs (scraper sites) violate my license, probably because they’re generating revenue from it, but not totally, because they’re linking back to my blog, but bottom line, I’m working hard, and they’re working smart.
A friend once told me this story, which I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing. Once at a train station in India, the train was about to take off from the station and there was a man running to catch that train, luckily, he made it just in time, but one of his shoes fell in the railroad track and he was on that train which was moving away from the train station.
What did he do?
He obviously can’t jump down to retrieve his shoe, therefore decided to throw the other one onto the railroad track. His exact thought, ‘When there’s only one shoe with me, it’s useless, when there’s only one shoe on the track, it’s also useless, shoes need to be in pairs. When it’s useless to me, why hold on to it, there might be people out there that might benefit from this pair of shoes, I’m happy that at least it might benefit someone, they’d be happy to find a good pair of shoes.’
The day that he died, the world mourn his departure….this man was Gandhi.
I’m sharing this story not hoping that you’d be like Gandhi, but hoping that you will enjoy life a bit more, you don’t have to rush to where you need to be, enjoy eating the meal in front of you, it’s okay to chew your food slowly…because in this world, there’s another type of people which they don’t care if you make a lot or little…but you have to ask yourself, did I give enough?
Someday, I hope to be the person that gives enough.
Nye Noona 
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I think I just prove my point; they linked because of the word ‘Vietnamese family’.
I remembered my boss told me about working wisely – I thought she was referring to “don’t work too hard if you are smart enough”. I figured, some of my colleagues only seemed to work harder when the Boss is around, whereas, I work harder because that’s just me.
I need a an extra raise I think for doing other people’s job.
Hi K, I’m not sure if I work smart, I always have a solution in my head before I do anything, one thing for sure, I have a good memory. I seem to work hard because I always have to help others with their work, helping them think things through, or just helping them period, of course they get all the credits, which that doesn’t bother me much, I’ve gotten use to it by now. I think I’m being too nice; I have to learn how to say no, but every time I see that confusing look on their face, I always give in, sometimes I feel like kicking myself.
You can tell that I’m having a bad day, I don’t normally take my feelings out on my post, but it does make me feel a bit better, thanks for listening, I seem to have less and less friend these days, pretty soon I’ll be talking to myself. 😦
Nice post. Nice Ghandi story. Some of us don’t really want to make a lot of money. And some of us do. Some of the professions that aren’t very much concern about making money are teachers. And most often these people will want to help strangers for nothing in return. It is what makes them feel good.
And feeling good is very important because it is the only way to fulfil our life. You might want to kick yourself but we must realize that you wanted to help them and they wanted to be help.
I like to help those that like to help themselves, but many times, I find myself helping because I feel sorry for them, especially if it’s on something that might take them all day to do and all I have to do is to write a simple query that might take me about 10-15 minutes, and it’s something that they can use in the future. It’s all about time management.
I only want to kick myself is when I help those with attitude, the know it all type, but in reality they’re clueless, ignorant and arrogant. Do you know anyone like that?
I get it. Those with attitudes, the know it all types. I believe these types don’t want help. This is when it’s okay to be selfish and say that you don’t know how to solve their problems.
Instead of kicking our butts and calling it a mistake, I’d call it an experience that we’re very greatful to have. Dwelling on our mistakes only leads us to depression. They win, we loose.
But if we call it a valuable experience, then we win.
Good way to look at it, thanks.