THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

Every motivational speech is laced with the stubborn ‘go get it’ mentality to push the audience to get up and thrive in whatever it is that they want.

One thing that motivational speakers have in common is that they gravitate towards hard work and how it is the centre of success. Perhaps in many ways of looking at it we can justify why this is true, however, my problem with this take is how it inactively suggests that when people are not successful then they are not working hard enough and that when people are not successful we need to simply encourage them to work harder and this is why many are dying to push so hard only to end up right where they have always been.

Virtue

If success is truly a virtue of hard work, then more than half of the people living in poverty would be rich and reaping the fruits of their hard work. I believe that hard work, as a construct, is entirely different from hard work as a reality and so we base advise and behavioural standards of hard work on what we understand it to be as a construct and not as reality. This construct of hard work is like enslavement because it gives you the hope that if you keep pushing harder and working harder then you will get rich off whatever it is you are working hard on. It is the unspoken reward of trying in a world that might just work on fortune. Perhaps successful is simply the work of fate, to be born in a specific time, in a specific place. Am I saying that it is pure luck? Yes, I am, perhaps success is simply a product of pure luck, of whether the wheel of fortune has span your way or not. The people we use as models of success to inspire us might simply be a product of chance. That our destiny plays a huge part in where we go, what we become – more than our hard work does.

Frustrated

The world will get frustrated when they see men or women with zero talents make it big and get rich for just existing, for not doing ‘real jobs’. So much so that we blame gen Z for ‘making’ anything looks like a job. When you do look at it, gen Z has changed the criteria for becoming ‘rich’, from the traditional need for an education, an office job, wearing a suit and slave nine to five the game has changed in the millennial era because a person is simply rich because they take good pictures and are paid thousands by brands to wear and use their products. Twitter pays young people just because many people interacted with their content – who cares what the content says? Bank notification coming right up. Young girls are rich because they look pretty and go MC events and all these money generating methods are new to the world of work. How dare someone be rich just by making videos saying nothing constructive? How dare they make the salary I make working hard all month in just one video dancing in branded shoes? At only age 22 when I am 45 and work day and night with a master’s degree? The world is not fair. It continuously shows how invaluable hard work is when it stands before fate.

Damage

I have met many bitter people that are often swept to the side at first glance because ‘they are just too bitter’ until you take a deeper look and are confronted with the damage of hard work. How the constant motivation to ‘work harder’ and you will make it grows resentment which breeds bitterness. A man that has spent all his life working hard to not get anything will eventually grow bitter and be resentful of the years they have wasted working for just that ‘one moment’ that can change everything. I am not suggesting we should supplement hard work with hope, but that we should rather look at hard work as a construct of possibility and just that, without the guarantee that it will fix or change things. This way you recognise that even that job interview you got called to or that job you have is simply fate smiling at you. It is a reminder that when things are meant for you then they are meant for you and that no matter what, when things are meant to find you they do and when they are not, no amount of hard work can change the direction of the wheel.

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