Wear out your shoes

Our world is obsessed with self-betterment. It’s part of why I write these blog entries every day. I’m practicing thinking about ideas I see, hear, and read about and regurgitating them into these short articles.

Self-betterment often leads young people into the trap of focusing all of their effort on optimization. The adage “Work smarter, not harder” is misapplied by practically everyone and is very dangerous to any good work ethic.

Hard work is the price of admission. You can’t get smarter unless you’re working. Like trying to steer a ship, it must be moving first.

Rather than trying to save my energy and time as if I’ll get it back later, I want to do the hard work first and figure out working smarter once I know how the work feels.

Wear out your shoes, not your sheets.