The years teach much which the days never know
The Sharpness of the Axe
Once Abraham Lincoln said:
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Often an underestimated statement. We human-beings are severely drowned in the ocean of instant gratification rather than focusing on the larger picture.
This in turn leads to poor choices and eventually unfavourable outcomes. Taking instant gratification into account, many of us are often doom-scrolling on social-media, gliding through all the short-form content hosted on platforms like YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and many more, which are tuned to retain attention of the users making use of contrasting and colourful palette, incorporating fancy animations, motion graphics and sound effects. Hours and hours are wasted by simply scrolling.
The Attention Crisis
Additionally, scientists says that there has been drastic downfall of average attention span because of indulging in short-form content which bombards a lot of information in short duration. It has gone so far that nowadays kids are neck deep into using devices such as smartphones and tablets, often it is witnessed that parents encourage this behaviour just to gasp some air, get some space and rest after all the baby-sitting.
Moreover, toddlers throw random tantrums, asking for screen-time while consuming food; hunching over and the distance between device and the toddler is dangerously low; invoking potential health issues. Having no patience, chasing for instant results becomes the reason we often prefer to get the solution of a problem we are facing as soon as possible; to be able to witness an overnight success.
The Subjectivity of Success
Success is a subjective concept, it varies from person to person. For some it could be to land their dream job, retire their parents, attain the level of reputation, fame, financial status that they aimed for, and on the other hand some just need a chance to prove themselves.
There is a saying, "Rome wasn't built in a single day", it highlights hurrying and mindlessly working won't be enough; efforts no matter how small or big produced consistently accounts for achieving success. There is a considerable divide of consensus between, working every single day having specific slot of time; discipline in short, and the other one is working with the burst of motivation. Not matter the difference of opinions that we all may have, it can be agreed that motivation is temporary, it's burst of energy.
Kevin Hart once said:
Sun's going to rise not matter how I feel.
This emphasizes the necessity of working every day with discipline. However, efforts and discipline alone won't suffice, one should be "hungry to learn, and eventually achieve what you set your eyes to". One of the excellent way to learn is to fail consistently on the thing you want to excel at. Failure or being unsuccessful at something for the time-being is not an issue; persuading yourself to persevere further despite all the hardships is what makes one succeed.
Thomas Edison while inventing incandescent light bulb stated:
I have not failed 10,000 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work.
Connections, Memories, and Grief
Life is not all about winning and losing, it's also about the connection that you form while throughout your life, some bitter some sweet. And these connections give us something very valuable, memories.
Some being painful, such as the memories of your failure, of you strafing through all the hardships, being loyal and honest to yourself by not giving up. On the other hand, some that heart-wrenching such as, loss of loved ones, which produces an emotional state called grief.
Grief put into words beautifully by Andrew Garfield, actor who played role of The Amazing Spider-man as:
Grief is nothing but unexpressed love.
The Cost of Ambition
Investing all your time to have that six-figure job, that luxury car, that house in that particular neighbourhood is all but great. However, not living at the moment leads to regret of not spending time with our loved ones. Not taking breaks once in a while to lay back and enjoy. Not going on the trip that you always yearned for, while having a gut-hurting moment of laughter with your friends.
Regret piles up; destroying, eating you from within just as the termites makes a healthy tree hollow from within, just to be converted into dust in due course of time.
Looking Back to Live Forward
A Danish philosopher named S. Kierkegaard quoted:
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Furthermore, anything and everything that happens in life has some reason for it, it would certainly not make sense. However, it will start to make sense once you look back in the past, just as S. Kierkegaard said. And yes, you would be stronger, wiser, kinder than you were.
Remember: Every sunrise sets us up with hope for the following day, make sure to do you best, stick to your values, and be grateful for everything. For life is beautiful and worth living with love and compassion.
Disclaimer: The thematic structure and headings of this essay were organized with the help of AI. However, the actual content was written entirely by me. Please note that the sentence structure and vocabulary have not been AI-corrected and reflect my own original writing.