Ever since we were little, we have been taught that great risks yield great rewards. It had been ingrained in our minds that the greater risk we take, the more reward we shall get. And that’s just it, the unspoken rule of life. It’s the one and only key to be happy and successful. Study hard, put aside honing your real passions, distance yourself from your social life and ignore the cracks forming in your mental health, and you’ll get into a great university. Once you’re there, do it all over again. Chase those perfect grades, prove yourself, get some internships in the summer, go stretch yourself thin. Then, if everything goes right, you’ll land a job shortly after you graduate. Maybe even a great one, somewhere far from home with a salary that makes it all seem worth it. And then? When you’re climbing through your career ladder high enough, try to find someone. Someone you can talk to without the conversation ending up in raised voices. Someone you can convince yourself that is enough to fill that emptiness inside your chest, and settle down. Start a family. Because that’s how the story’s supposed to go, right? That’s what society has led us to believe. That this is the only path to be happy and successful. But it doesn’t always work out this way, does it? What if, somewhere along the way, no matter how hard we try, we didn’t end up getting those good grades? Or, what if after tirelessly achieving all that academic success, we still didn’t land that high-paying job right after graduation? What if, as the years pass, we realize we can no longer convince ourselves that the person we’ve settled down with, can fill the emptiness we carry inside?
We’ve been taught that if we work hard enough, sacrifice enough, the rewards will surely come. Whether it be in the form of success, recognition, love or even stability, we’re always going to be chasing after it. Like a dog chasing a bone that’s dangled out of reach. But here’s the thing. If you think about it, we’re rarely warned about the other side of the spectrum: the possibility that our efforts might not bear fruit at all. It can be disheartening when our hard work yield results smaller than we hoped for. I see it all the time, especially in younger generations today, navigating through the brutal job market today despite doing everything “right” and earning all the necessary qualifications. Most of their efforts may have been fruitless, but then again, I just feel like we’re rarely warned about this: that sometimes, despite our best efforts, the results just don’t come. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean we’ve failed. It just simply means we’re human. Not everything we do will pay off the way we imagined. It doesn’t mean that our efforts are meaningless. It just means it’s not for us. What matters shouldn’t be the rewards we yield. But the potential for growth, the resilience and the moments of kindness we give and receive along the way. Believe it or not, something as simple as kindness is really rare these days. Because ultimately, when we’re older and we look back on our lives, we won’t smile because of grades or job titles or the things we gave up whilst chasing a dream. We’ll smile because, in our darkest moments, there were people who stood by us. People who held our hands, listened without judgment and reminded us that we weren’t alone. Sometimes, even that quiet kind of fulfillment, the love we find in the most unexpected place, is more than enough than all these achievements. Sincerely, Cherie. The Whiffler is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell The Whiffler that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Monday, 14 July 2025
Fruitless Efforts
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Fruitless Efforts
Sometimes, risk does not always yield reward. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ...
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socialleveragedwritings posted: "Fairness has been a status symbol for centuries. It has been so deep-seated that we form f...
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