How Only a Work-Shirker Knows the Right Way To Work Hard

You have to be a shirker to really capture the spirit of working hard. The right way to work hard is not so hard after all.

Are you working harder than you need to? Let us see how avoiding work can make you develop a different sort of muscle.

It is the story of a girl who loved to read.

I loved reading stories and novels growing up. I could read anything. From suspense thrillers to emotional dramas, I devoured everything. But my mother wanted me to study for school as well.

I loved her too much to ignore her advice and could not dream of breaking her heart. I wanted to impress her and my teacher. Getting good grades was a family tradition as well.

My father's favorite proverb was: take time by the forelock. When I was five, he would tell me how time flies. "Now you go to kindergarten, then you'll go to junior school, high school, college, and the university. If you don't do anything at all, time will go by anyway," he said gently. I sat in his lap and imagined the passing time, seeing myself going to the university as a big girl. It happened at least once a month. Somehow, I always enjoyed this form of time travel.

But my problem was to read stories I loved without sacrificing my studies? During the summer vacations, I wanted to read fiction from morning to evening.

I told myself: "Reading once is enough for me." At the time, it was a lie. I did not know anyone could learn things that fast. I'd close my eyes after reading a page of any book and tell myself what I had learned.

However, I was honest with myself. I did not lie to myself. If I failed to remember something, I'd reread that page. But it felt like wasting time I could spend reading more entertaining stories.

So, I repeated this mantra again and again in my mind: I can remember everything I read. "One reading is all I need," I told my mother. She told me to read my textbook like a storybook. She knew how fast I read those stories.

"Now tell me what you learned from this book," she would ask me when I bragged about finishing a book. When I was wrong, she'd tell me to reread that part. But mostly, she made me feel that I was the most intelligent girl in the world.

Thomas Edison went to school only for a few months. When a schoolmaster called Edison "addled," his mother took him out of the school. Years later, Edison said, "My mother was the making of me. She was so sure of me, and I felt I had someone to live for, someone I must never disappoint."

I am no Edison, but I loved to tell my mother how I was ahead of my study targets.

The wish to brag and the intense desire to not waste time studying - only the time spent reading stories was not wasted - made me focus more fully. I was more focused than anybody in my class.

I found out - by hit and trial - that if I woke up at 4:40 am, I could finish my studies by 6:40 am. Then I could read all the stories and novels I wanted to read. If I delayed my studies to 9:00 am, it took me three hours to read the same number of pages. It was like wasting one hour of story reading time.

The more stories I read, the more stories I found to read. Every writer had written many books, and there was so much to read. There was a time when I thought I'd only read books when I grew up. And do nothing else. I didn't know there were bills to be paid, apartments to be rented, and loans to be returned.

For me, studying was the work. Reading stories and novels was fun. I had to finish my work to start having fun.

As time passed, my mantra - that I could remember everything after reading once - arrived at my subconscious mind. I had self-hypnotized myself into paying an extraordinary amount of attention while I was working.

I had self-hypnotized myself into paying an extraordinary amount of attention while I was working.

The days I went to school, I focused on what the teachers said. They wasted a lot of time. I could read in one hour what the teachers taught in six hours. I wished to return home and read what I loved to read.

My wish to finish a story - and start the next one - was so great that I read fiction stories even more attentively. My work - which forced me to pay more attention to get good results - enabled me to read more stories. I enjoyed my reading more because I had learned to concentrate my attention, my energy, my being, my chi, or whatever it is that makes me me.

As I could understand things better than others - by reading once - I became interested in science. Science was easy. Things made sense. When you learned a concept, you did not need to read everything. You could explain it using your own words. Organic chemistry was a bit tricky. But if you knew the types of bonds, it became easy.

You cannot believe how I did the math. I read math. I solved problems in my head. Once I knew the theory, math became easy. During my electrical engineering, I tried to solve four-page-long integration problems in my head. Mostly, the answers were wrong, but sometimes I got it right. A big thing if you ask an engineer.

The boundaries between work, fun, and life are not so clear in your head. Your mind is one big whole.

The advantage of reading lots and lots of stories and novels is that I can quickly write a story.

Another hidden benefit is that my dreams are more engaging. I have watched movies and lived complete novels in my dreams. Most people cannot imagine how much fun that is. What you do during your waking hours affects your brain's sleep time activity. If you read novels and watch movies, your mind does the same thing during sleep.

I love to sleep. I can easily sleep for ten hours. I usually aim for seven or eight hours, but there was a time when all I wanted to do was to sleep for twelve hours. Going to strange places, doing impossible things, flying, running, and even having sex with total strangers is not possible if you did not read a lot growing up.

Some of my friends say they don't dream. Or they don't remember their dreams. I cannot imagine how these people can ever feel what it is like to be in those fantastic places.

I think by paying attention - and getting absorbed in a story - I have learned to hypnotize myself. When I am reading a story - or watching a movie - I wish strongly to live in those places or similar places in my dream. When you watch a horror movie, you see nightmares. But if you read about alien planets in a novel, you visit similar places in your sleep.

I pay attention to details even in my dreams.

I have been writing my novel - first novel - for five years. Perhaps when my fun becomes my work, I push it away.

My mind keeps on working on the story of my novel when I am not writing. In the shower, in the kitchen, and in the car. I run the story in my mind. I have enjoyed all my novels like a movie. But when I am writing, I get distracted.

My fun activity is slowly but surely becoming my full-time work.

Push and Pull of work and fun

When you are working you think about having fun. When you are having fun, you are thinking about your work. The boundaries merge.

You want to work more to have more fun. You want to have more fun to work hard later on.

Like the dance of opposite sexes, yin and yang, good and evil, work and fun also push and pull you in different directions.

Work and fun lose meaning without each other.

Final Thoughts

I think the real work is paying attention.

Paying attention gets paid.

Work is a very good way to learn to concentrate. High stakes help you to bring your energies to a point where you can excel.

The best kind of work is excellent work - that can pay you more. You have to do lots of routine work to earn a meager amount.

As long as you can focus, you'll be able to do high-quality work. The things you learn to do excellent work will help you in life as well.

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This story was first published on medium.com on August 24, 2021.