When the harder you try, the less you succeed

Day 65 / 365

In my college, we used to have this Grade called AP. Its value was the same as AA, the highest grade, but it was only awarded to students that performed exceptionally well in a course. If a student’s marks are exceptionally high, that can ruin the grades of other students due to relative grading. So to prevent this that student’s marks are not considered for relative grading and he is given an AP grade as a symbolic token of his performance. AP’s were rare.

It was my goal to get at least one AP in my 5 years of college. Every semester I chose one course where I thought I had a chance of getting one and gave it my 100%. And I failed every time. However I did manage to get an AP, and it was in a course I had little interest in and in which I put in an average effort at most.

I’m sure if you look back at your own life you will find cases where the harder you tried to succeed, the lesser you actually did. On the other hand, you would have had situations where you had huge successes with minimal effort. In philosophy, this phenomenon is known as the Law of Reversed Effort or the Backward’s Law. Here’s how Alan Watts, a philosophical writer who talked a lot about this law, puts it

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone”

So does this mean that our parents and teachers were wrong? who taught us how to work harder and harder to succeed?

Well not quite. What this law tells us that there is a point of diminishing returns for our hard works. We need to identify and respect it. This is where smart work is better than hard work. Don’t work hard just for the sake of it.

You should make sure that your hard work doesn't make you feel stressed. When stress enters the equation, your hard work starts to become counter-productive.

This story is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — How to wake up early every day