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If there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned from my humble university career is that simple intelligence has nothing to do with one\u2019s success. That is, intelligence alone will not land you a career in that wasteland we call the real world. Undergraduates often get hung up in the common notion that a grade point average certifies the surgeons, legalizes the lawyers, and so forth. \u00a0And they\u2019re right to worry about such trifles, but not for the reasons they think. Most people commonly associate the GPA with a measure of intelligence, or how \u201csmart\u201d someone is. Nothing could be further from the truth. Think about the grade you received on your first college report card. Was the grade you received a mark of how talented your brain was at computing information? Or rather, did it reflect how hard you slaved and trained yourself to understand course material? The latter implies that the GPA is not a measure of talent someone possesses, but more a gauge of a student\u2019s willingness to work hard.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0I recently had the opportunity to sit in on a number of lectures with successful medical doctors, all of which had little to say about their relative brain capacities to others. In fact, they bragged about their work hours. They proudly told the horror stories of first-year residencies; relished in the memories of sleeping only eight hours a week.\u00a0 They hung their third-world humanitarian experiences with pride around their necks. \u00a0It was a dedication to hard work that set these men apart\u2014a dedication to harvest their own fruits of success. <\/p>\n
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I don\u2019t like work\u2014no man does\u2014but I like what is in work, the chance to find yourself. Your own reality\u2014for yourself\u2026<\/p>\n
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Joseph Conrad (from his short story <\/i>Heart of Darkness)<\/i><\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Through personal perseverance one assimilates into adulthood, gaining a heightened awareness of reality. That reality is characterized by the undying principle that hard work determines success. For this reason, I disdain the current state of the popular music industry.\u00a0 In the past, the musician had to fight and persist through trials and failures in order to secure his fame. <\/p>\n
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Take for example The Beatles; people generally assume that when the Beatles came to America they became a sort of \u201cinstant success\u201d with undeniably natural talent. However, in reality The Beatles were a struggling band eight years before their rise to stardom. For eight years, Paul McCartney and John Lennon had to marinate in the back streets of Hamburg, Germany while pursuing their own music gigs, organize rock band logistics such as equipment, members, pay etc. They had to be businessmen. Only after \u201ca hard day\u2019s night\u201d did the band really explode into this worldwide phenomenon. Their music is timeless because, yes, in part they were brilliant musicians, but more so the amount of work and entrepreneurship that went into creating a rock and roll powerhouse had a correlating pay off. <\/p>\n
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In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.<\/p>\n
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Malcolm Gladwell (from his book <\/i>Outliers)<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And consequently, the modern advent of YouTube has killed the spirit of hard work. I speak naturally of the abominable event of Justin Bieber\u2019s \u201covernight\u201d night rise to fame. <\/p>\n
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People don’t rise from nothing….It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.<\/p>\n
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Malcolm Gladwell (from his book<\/i> Outliers) \u00a0<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ll center my criticism on one crucial fact. Look at any biography and notice that Bieber never in fact pursued his own musical career by even bothering to post his own videos\u2014his mom did it for him. Bieber never personally sought out record deals: they were handed to him by a desperate contract agent. This very notion has created a false reality amongst hundreds of young aspiring musicians that all they need to do is post their recordings online and then by some miracle the recording offers will pop up on their Facebook accounts. This is false, and I must make this apology for Justin Bieber. The modern conveniences of the digital age cannot substitute for hard work. If you\u2019re young and na\u00efve to the realities of sorrows and trials that accompany the rise to fame, start laboring now. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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To be alive is to have scars.<\/p>\n
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John Steinbeck (from his novel <\/i>Winter of Our Discontent)<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, I respect the prodigy within Justin Bieber; his musical skills are incredible, and very few people have the ability to swoon millions of adolescent girls. Without a doubt, he must have put a considerable amount of effort into developing his talents by himself. Nonetheless, Bieber lacks the drive for entrepreneurship. He doesn\u2019t write his own music, and doesn\u2019t work to keep his fame. He doesn\u2019t have to, mainly because he is still a teenager. I believe that the apparent lack of inexperience and honest labor will end up being detrimental to Bieber\u2019s character. <\/p>\n
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This flaw already manifests itself with the prideful air in which Bieber portrays his music. He\u2019ll turn a humble Christmas carol (\u201cThe Little Drummer Boy\u201d), bastardize the religious sentiment and boast about his talents:<\/p>\n
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And I only spit heat cause I’m playin’ for the Son.
Playin’ for the King, playin for the Title,
I’m surprised you didn’t hear this in the Bible.
I’m so tight, I might go psycho.<\/p>\n
Playin’ for the King, playin for the Title,
I’m surprised you didn’t hear this in the Bible.
I’m so tight, I might go psycho.<\/p>\n
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Justin Bieber<\/p>\n
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Pride is the enemy of hard work–like a soft whisper from Hell it subtly insists that talent alone achieves fame. This is the greatest obstacle to success, and if not overcome, we halt our own potential growth. Soon, the musician sits idly by waiting for his tribute from the common man until he realizes all his friends have deserted and he is left with nothing\u2014not even the drive to work harder.<\/p>\n
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You don\u2019t have enough talent to win on talent alone!<\/p>\n
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Herb Brooks (coach of the 1984 US Gold Medal Olympic Hockey Team)<\/p>\n
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Bieber hasn\u2019t developed the entrepreneur work ethic, and similarly once he turns 18 and enters adulthood, he won\u2019t have the drive to work hard either. Unless he learns that taking initiative is what fuels fame, his music will turn into a short lived fad, and drift away with the sands of time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n