There’s a reason the word after “Get Rich Quick” is “Scheme”. We innately know there’s no such thing as a free lunch, yet we still want to believe a shortcut to success exists. One that is easy and, impossibly still, moral. It’s not surprising in an age when almost everything can be outsourced.
Lack dietary restraint and don’t fancy working out? Take an appetite suppressant. Inject yourself with diabetic medication as a method of weight loss. There are no overt side effects found... so far. We may be able to achieve fast results, but the question is whether they last.
Schools measure how quickly we can acquire knowledge, not how well we retain it. There is a difference between learning and understanding; between regurgitating information and applying it effectively. It’s why we leap at the prospect of quick rewards, with trends showing renewed interest (pun intended) in trading in recent years.
Even if you’ve never fallen for a job scam or generally avoid big risks, you may have sold long-term data (downloading an app and creating an account) for a short-term pay off (one free coffee). We are so focused on saving time and energy that we fail to see it is the expenditure of both that buys future gain.
In a series of Stanford experiments colloquially known as the marshmallow test, Walter Mischel explored how delayed gratification influenced life outcomes. Four- and five-year-old participants were offered one small treat they could take immediately (often a marshmallow), or promised double if they waited while the researcher left the room for a few minutes.
Sitting alone with a single visible treat, children who showed patience went on to demonstrate better academic performance and even healthier body-mass indices well into early adulthood. There are, naturally, critiques of direct causation, pointing to other environmental factors that could affect the findings. Yes, our behaviours are more complex than self-control alone, but I wouldn’t bet against the correlation.
In Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein examined excellence across fields and discovered that those who found their specialisation later often outperformed peers. Juggling several interests instead of narrowing on one facilitates greater creativity and mental agility. So feel better, fellow Jack of all trades who has mastered none.
Not to romanticise yet another Japanese philosophy, but you can’t deny the pride and care that inform this attitude toward craftsmanship. Directly, albeit loosely, translating to “the making of things,” the principle embodies the value instilled in the work.
While it refers to honing specific skills, the common factor is the amount of time invested—whether in diverse pursuits or a single specialty. So, maybe we need to reframe how we think about the path to success. It’s not necessarily linear, and more crucially, time is of the essence.
