We live in an achievement-obsessed society that is quick to apply the labels “talented” and “gifted” to everyone who has accomplished anything of importance.
People who are successful are often portrayed as superhuman, born with magical abilities that separate them from the rest of the human race. For instance, award-winning actors and actresses are touted as talented. The same goes for those who have succeeded in business as well. If the person in question is young, they are likely to be labeled this way.
The media isn’t interested in portraying hard work, or how much effort so-called “gifted and talented” people have to put in before they see successful results. Our society judges someone on their accomplishments, assuming they must have been born with gifts. We don’t stop and appreciate the effort that goes into an extraordinary piece of artwork, a best-selling novel, or a high-performing company. We all naturally tend to assume that talent naturally gives rise to excellent results.
The meaning of “Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard,” is that no matter how talented you are, if you don’t work hard, nothing will happen for you.
The primary difference between hard work and talent is that, in general, talent refers to the natural ability of a person, and it is something that can be nurtured through activities that they take part in. Hard work, on the other hand, refers to the continuous commitment toward a particular goal set by a person or a team.
Talent only pays off if one applies it. That still means one has to work hard, but not as hard as those who develop the skills naturally. Hard work beats talent any day, because hard work has one thing that talent doesn’t have, which is experience.
Most of the time, the application of hard work for talent becomes futile. Therefore, hard work is more important than natural talent. Through the years, researchers have discovered that hard work is a major component of intellectual ability.
Even though you may have talent, you will lose it if you don’t work hard and your natural gift will be wasted. If you do not practice what you have already learned, you will soon forget it.
This is why many people say ‘practice makes perfect’. Talent is a natural gift but easy to lose. You can easily create talent if you work hard at it. It will become more like a second sense as you do it more.
Many will probably say that talent gives you an edge. It can put you ahead of everyone so you will need to do less work. But we all know the fable, “The Tortoise and the Hare,” a story of a race between unequal partners with conflicting interpretations of each other.
The hare is very confident of winning, so it stops during the race and falls asleep. The tortoise continues to move very slowly but without stopping, and finally wins the race. The moral lesson of the story is that you can be more successful by doing things slowly and steadily than by acting quickly and carelessly.
Overall, talent may give you a head start in life, but hard work always finishes the race. Without hard work, talent is meaningless, and you can create talent with hard work.
Leave a Reply