These three words from George Saunders sum up a fundamental key to success.
George Saunders shared this mindset in his recent interview with Rachel Martin. He revealed it as a misquote of Robert Frost, who said “don’t work, worry” – but I agree with Saunders that this mindset is way more meaningful and effective. I guess it’s officially a George Saunders quote, because I can’t find anyone else having said it before him.
I see students spending way more time on worry than work. Perhaps, like me, they entered high school or college not understanding how – or needing – to really work on their education. Perhaps they internalized the message from pop culture that success is just something that happens. (There’s no easy way to really depict the years and years of hard work that precede great success.) Perhaps they learned during the pandemic to wait for things to be delivered to them.
Regardless of what induced an avoidance of hard work, the advice stands. Worry less, and work more.
Like, way way more.
In the words of Steve Zegree, the secret shortcut to success is hard work.
Worry gets in the way of the work; it paralyzes us. And work eliminates worry as we begin to see the progress.