Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 21, 1994 TAG: 9403260009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Monty S. Leitch
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Along about the seventh grade, I considered sewing one of my major talents. So, every year I scoured the class list and tallied up the prize money I'd win if I entered every class for which my talents qualified me. My estimates usually ran a little high.
I remember only one entry: a straight skirt, with zipper, made of a heavy fabric that had a slight sheen. That sheen, of course, marked very definite right and wrong sides; but they were hard to see unless you were in a strong light. Consequently, I got the front and back pieces assembled wrong-side to right-side several times before achieving a good match. Each time the match was wrong, Mama had me tear out the seam and try again.
That skirt took a lot of effort. A lot of effort. And when it was done, I thought it was glorious. I couldn't for the life of me understand why it didn't win. "Don't they know how hard I worked?" I remember complaining piteously to a friend.
Indeed, "they" could see exactly how hard I'd worked (all those resewn seams!), and that's precisely the reason I didn't win. The winning effort is always invisible.
The longer I live, the more I watch success and failure around me (and in my own life), the more I believe this to be true: No correlation exists at all between effort and achievement.
Boy, does that ever go against the American grain! "Pull yerself up by yer bootstraps, son," echoes in nearly every political judgment heard on the street.
Even though, all around us, every day, empirical evidence belies the notion that hard work ensures success.
You know this from your own life, if you'll just admit it. Haven't you slaved over a recipe all day, only to have it flop at the dinner table? And then the next night thrown together something without a thought, only to have your family exclaim in delight, "Wow! Is this wonderful! Be sure to make this again."
How? you're thinking. But you won't say that out loud. Instead, like the woman in the Rice Krispies Treats commercial, you'll wipe your brow in weary gratitude. If it was good, it must have been really hard - right?
Wrong.
Say, for instance, you've spent nearly three weeks preparing a report. You've thought of everything, answered every possibile objection. You've proofread a thousand times, double-checked your figures. You're proud. You're ready. (You're tired.) Then, the day of the meeting, the first thing anyone says about your work is, "You need to check the difference between 'affect' and 'effect.' See? Page 74, line three."
Two weeks later, in the heat of some deep discussion, you blurt out an idea that's just popped into your head - a joke, you think, to break the tension. All eyes turn to you. "That's brilliant!" everyone cries at once. "Absolutely brilliant!"
Stunned, you say nothing. Then, pretending humility, you murmur, "Well, I've been thinking of this for some time."
Ha!
Life, I'm convinced, operates according to Salieri. You remember him - Mozart's jealous rival. Try as hard as he might, Salieri could never write anything that came close to the music Mozart composed, apparently without thought. Salieri died in terrible despair, believing all his effort wasted.
Indeed, in the final analysis, effort doesn't count. At least, not in the way we expect.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB