1. They assume all situations are created equal.
2. They use flowery language to hide a lack of substance.
3. They attribute successes to hard work and failures to bad luck.
4. Fortune cookies work just as well, and taste much better.
5. People like to recommend them in lieu of actually doing anything helpful.
6. They assume that hard work always pays off.
7. They assume that believing in yourself always pays off.
8. They never specify what they mean by ‘believing in yourself’.
9. They cultivate false hope.
10. They only person they actually help is the author.
3 comments
…. You have to believe in yourself man, those points sound legit to me. Success is only created through Hard Work. You can’t expect to magically get better, no invisible hand is going to come from the sky and help you out.
To paraphrase Warren Buffet: if success was the inevitable result of hard work, then every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.
Though ‘hard work’ is one of those weasel words–what does it mean anyway? What are we working hard on? Is hard work always a good thing? Is it ever?
Sisyphus was certainly a hard worker.
And what is success? Are you satisfied once you get there or do you always want more? Do you even know when you get there? Can it be measured?
You rarely hear about people who worked their tails off and still lost, though they must number in the billions. History favors winners.
How do I believe in myself? What does that mean?
I don’t want to magically get better. I can’t magically get better. I don’t have any idea what I want to do, but I doubt magic is involved.
Invisible hands aren’t especially reliable, but I still don’t know what on earth I’m doing.
#10 is so so true! The only person who succeeds is the author, while every one else’s situation might never change at all.
Believe in yourself, just be yourself, and love you before others can is all just FALSE HOPE. In order to get some where you have to NOT be yourself and follow the crowd a little.