Life has no Shortcuts

Given the choice, of course we would all choose a path that has the simplest route to our goal. The challenge is, not all goals offer such luxury and ease. 

Just recently the NBA Finals was concluded, with the Dallas Mavericks being crowned as champions. Their opponent, probably the most hated team in the NBA, the Miami Heat. And why is that? Because before the season started, the Miami Heat literally formed a super team by getting together Lebron James, the self-proclaimed "King", Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade. For those of you who are not familiar with them, they are pretty much the next generation, top of their prime players right now in the NBA. And they got together because they wanted to win the championship at the quickest time possible by supposedly overwhelming the opposing teams with such superior talent that other players are just petrified with awe.

Well, their planned shortcut did not work. Perseverance, Teamwork and Passion prevailed.

Life does not really offer any easy way out if you ask me.

To reach a certain goal, you really have to put much time and effort. It actually is quicker if you move from point A to point C if you pass through point B, rather than wasting your time thinking of ways to bend space and time to jump from point A directly to point C, skipping point B in the process. (Unless of course you have all the time in the world to spare, putting together the X, Ys and Zs, then I suggest you become an astrophysicist and try figuring out how the universe started.)

You can't go wrong by following a certain process. Sure, some processes have so many steps you would wish that it was just like a race where you can rent a Bugatti Veyron and speed your way through the finish line. But at that speed, you risk of losing control and eventually suffer an accident.

At work, you don't get that sense of fulfillment if you know that you got promoted the easy way just because you rub elbows with the Hiring Manager. Screw fulfillment you say? Sure you got what you wanted, but in the end if you were not fully qualified for the position, let's see how you get yourself out of the hole when problems arise. That should be a hoot. Your hiring manager will bail you out you say? Sure they might, but before you know it, you will be pulling them down that very same hole, and you got yourself a party down there.

In other aspects of Life, you got to face its challenges. You can't simply ignore them or have them outsourced and have somebody else figure things out for you. (Although that's how I feel in doing HR work, every problem and issue is outsourced to HR. Even if HR has nothing to do with it, we actually make it our problem, as long as it has anything to do with a human, it's ours.)

Don't make things more complicated by taking too many shortcuts, you might steer yourself into a dead end. Remember, in Life it's not the destination that counts but the journey towards it that matters.