"hard" is a weasel word, it means nothing concrete, it's not quantifiable, and even as a quality it's unclear, what is the emotional feeling attached to it?
"work" has two meanings:
1. activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result
2. a task or tasks to be undertaken; something a person or thing has to do
So what are we even talking about when we say "hard work"?
If you take the first definition, adding the "hard" qualifier makes no difference, because what makes an activity "hard" is that it requires mental and/or physical effort to accomplish. So in that sense, work is inherently effortful, and thus "hard". Maybe what people mean when they say "hard work" is sustained effort exertion?
If you take the second it makes more sense, but then it would imply that "hard work" is about the choice of task you undertake. If you choose to do harder tasks, you'd be "hard working". The issue here though is that it's not clear what makes a task "hard". I think the risk of failure is possibly the best way to qualify it here. If you're likely to fail the task, it is thus "hard" to you. But is that really what people mean when they evangelize "hard work"? To always work on tasks you are likely to fail at?
Since PG's example was how Bill Gates took no vacation in 10 years, I'll conclude that he's trying to suggests that "hard work" means have a "high rate of work per week".
So he seem to imply "hard work" is when most of your week is spent exerting mental or physical effort towards a result or purpose.
And that's where I hate the framing of "hard work", it's just "work", adding "hard" is just a pretentious qualifier.
P.S.: I really doubt Bill Gates success is attributable to not taking 15 days of time off per year for 10 years. That is not a lot of time, maybe if he worked 80 hours week, but as research shows, real physical and mental effort is unsustainable beyond some level, and rest is needed.
"hard" is a weasel word, it means nothing concrete, it's not quantifiable, and even as a quality it's unclear, what is the emotional feeling attached to it?
"work" has two meanings:
1. activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result
2. a task or tasks to be undertaken; something a person or thing has to do
So what are we even talking about when we say "hard work"?
If you take the first definition, adding the "hard" qualifier makes no difference, because what makes an activity "hard" is that it requires mental and/or physical effort to accomplish. So in that sense, work is inherently effortful, and thus "hard". Maybe what people mean when they say "hard work" is sustained effort exertion?
If you take the second it makes more sense, but then it would imply that "hard work" is about the choice of task you undertake. If you choose to do harder tasks, you'd be "hard working". The issue here though is that it's not clear what makes a task "hard". I think the risk of failure is possibly the best way to qualify it here. If you're likely to fail the task, it is thus "hard" to you. But is that really what people mean when they evangelize "hard work"? To always work on tasks you are likely to fail at?
Since PG's example was how Bill Gates took no vacation in 10 years, I'll conclude that he's trying to suggests that "hard work" means have a "high rate of work per week".
So he seem to imply "hard work" is when most of your week is spent exerting mental or physical effort towards a result or purpose.
And that's where I hate the framing of "hard work", it's just "work", adding "hard" is just a pretentious qualifier.
P.S.: I really doubt Bill Gates success is attributable to not taking 15 days of time off per year for 10 years. That is not a lot of time, maybe if he worked 80 hours week, but as research shows, real physical and mental effort is unsustainable beyond some level, and rest is needed.