Yes, I know these are self labelled, but it’s my blog, right?
“If you never try, you fail seldom, but succeed never.”
I came up with that in response to a post on a board in a business where I was working that said: “Fail often and succeed sooner”, which I liked. Under that, it said something like “if you don’t do your best, you shortchange others; and if they don’t do their best they shortchange you.” That wasn’t it, but that was the sentiment.
While doing my work, I got to thinking about the Greeks. What is their equivalent? “Do as little as possible, and have as much fun as you can every day?” “Soak everybody else”. “Screw work”. Whether expressed or not verbally, that is the sentiment they have expressed politically, as have many other nations in Europe, who cannot even be bothered to reproduce to continue the viability of their nations. Everything, they seem to believe, stops with them. Hard to worry about your grandchildren if you don’t ever have any children.
Americans work hard. No one can deny us that. We work as hard as the Japanese or Chinese. I know plenty of people who work 60 hour weeks. I’ve done it myself many, many times, and more.
People who work hard will always do well, especially if they also work smart. So much of the world wants to take a two hour nap every day and leave at 5pm, and still live as well as people who take 30 minutes for lunch and work until 8pm. That is patent injustice. Reward the workers, and ignore those who don’t work. That is a viable motto for continued prosperity.