By Max Yurko ’27
On the last Sunday of January, many in the Baltimore community gathered with great anticipation to watch their beloved football team, the AFC North champions, the Ravens, vie for a prized spot in Super Bowl LVIII. The culmination of a season spent hammering away on the field, in the gym, playing through injuries and adversity had led to this moment. The dreams of a team and a city were just hours away from fulfillment. And the rest, they say, is history – all that hard work with no tangible positive outcome. The usual Monday morning conversations from professional analysts and amateur critics, friends, and foes have since faded into obscurity. Yet disappointed fans, coaches, players, and even uninterested fans of Taylor Swift can look back and learn a valuable lesson about the true rewards of hard work.
Many struggle to embrace hard work without an end goal tied to an extrinsic prize; hard work seems tiresome, time-consuming, and generally unappealing. Often, an aversion to hard work stems from a failure to see the greater value that leads to fulfillment. Many know the pain that comes with working day in and day out to achieve greatness, only to fall short. In fact, goals set with outcomes such as “winning” or “being the best” involve not only hard work, but also overcoming the efforts of competitors and the pitfalls of variables beyond our control. Hard work undertaken solely to reach an extrinsic goal may often lead to disappointment.
Yet hard work is one element that differentiates those who are truly great and truly happy people. Those who work hard learn that there is no end goal to their labor greater than putting forth the best effort possible. They know that sometimes they will be unsuccessful, but they will learn something in the process and try again, leading to more hard but productive work. They understand that all they do moves them toward improvement. The true reward is that they can look themselves in the mirror and know the fullness of their effort.
The 2017 film The Darkest Hour closes with a quote attributed to Winston Churchill: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal – it is the courage to continue that counts.” While critics point out that no record exists of him saying this, the message is clear. Whether or not we emerge victorious from a particular battle or undertaking, life continues. Tomorrow there will be another hill to climb. Likewise, a goal unattained does not mean the end. We will live to fight another day, tackle new challenges, and create new goals. More than anything, courage matters. One of the bravest things we can do is work to be better, no matter what the outcome.
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