By Murli Chari
The hackneyed cliché that hard work pays is obsolete and redundant. The latest catch-word is smart work pays. With technology taking center-stage hard work would make our lives an endless struggle to eke out an existence. If we track history we would realize that technology and science are the miracle wand ensuring rapid progress eliminating the need for drudgery. Our human history has legions of examples like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Mukesh Ambani, Tata, Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani et al who have used smart work to build empires and great fortune. Hard work though appreciated can only help us in eking out an existence. Most of the hard-working people are struggling to make a living. To do smart work we have to leverage science, technology, money, capital, knowledge, and other people's time and money. With knowledge becoming the new capital and democratic at that everyone has the level playing field to do smart work. We would be living in a fool’s paradise if we still believe in hard work philosophy to live a great life. Human beings have the humongous potential to create miracles. Smart people leverage the trendiest infrastructure like computers, advanced software, artificial intelligence to create wealth beyond our wildest imaginations for themselves and millions of others. Hard work was valuable when science and technology were in their nascent stage. Smart work involves the use of all the human faculties integrating and coalescing other resources. It has the potential to make the optimum use of all the resources. It’s a quantum leap in the ladder of human evolution. Just imagine how the wonder machine computer has made many onerous jobs a child play. It saves time and effort which can be deployed for more creative thinking and work. 3D printing is really a phenomenal smart tool that makes the best use of time and resources. With the advent of automation smart work is proving to be of paramount importance. Driverless cars would in a couple of years become ubiquitous as that would bring down the number of accidents ensuring fewer fatalities and loss of limbs. It would do away with the fatigue experienced by the drivers. Smart work has enabled space exploration very easy and affordable. Jim Ron the legendary inspirational leader rightly said” If you work on the job you will make a living and if you work on yourself you
will make a fortune”. That’s the power of smart work. But for smart work, we would still be languishing in the stone age. All the phenomenal development we witness today is mainly due to smart work. Smart work unleashes immense energies and potential.
The greatest invention is the discovery of electricity which has forever changed the face of our world. It has enabled human beings to enhance production, communication, and transportation thereby bringing a catharsis in the quality of life. All great discoveries, inventions, and knowledge owe their presence to smart work. We cannot imagine a single day without computers, the internet, mobiles, and other gadgets which are all smart devices. Of late robots are playing a great role in carrying out mechanical, repetitive, mundane and monotonous work freeing human beings for more creative and smart work. It is not far off when every one of us has to be smart to carry on daily activities. Hard will vanish into oblivion.
Many of the jobs will become extinct in the not so far off time. Doctors, lawyers, drivers and many more jobs would be taken over by artificial intelligence and computers. Many experts are exhorting people to upgrade their skills to become smarter and to avoid falling into the quagmire of redundancy.
We are on the growth trajectory due to smart work enabled by smart technologies and knowledge. We need to understand that smart work can trigger an avalanche of creative energies and potential thereby paving the way for an egalitarian society. It is smart to work that can remove the scourge of poverty and illiteracy. We need to include this vital skill in the curricula of all education systems. We can ignore this virtue only at the cost of our dreams being quashed on the quandary. We need to propagate this philosophy which alone has the potential to bring peace, progress and prosperity for the entire populace of the world.
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