Smart not Hard

Once below a time, a man had a hard time meeting his daily amenities. He was industrious. So industrious that he had little or no time for rest. Rest was waste to him.

His hard work didn’t pay him the successes and wealth he deserved.

He landed himself dead tired on his bed at home. Sleepless night would ensue, his thoughts lost in thoughts. After an infinite blinks, he would have a nap or two.

His penury perplexed him. He wasn’t as successful as he had envisaged. All through his life, he led a melancholic and poor life, just fit for rats and the like.

He resigned to himself believing in his karma and , ‘some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them’, echoed resiliently on his semi-deaf ears. A tear drop on the floor would usually break his trance.

He was sure that a bad karma was at work. He felt increasingly tired and loathed his life.

And at 65, he signed his last looking like a nonagenarian.

On a funeral pyre, his face told everything: he died of exhaustion and much sorrow. His face wasn’t peaceful. There, on the funeral pyre laid a man defeated by life. His body was reduced to ashes. He was history now, gone into oblivion without knowing one simple truth (and secret) of life: It’s not how hard you work; it’s how smart you work.