'Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Doesn't Work Hard.'
A quote widely liked and commended by many people.
The problem with this quote is it's utter crap in practice. It forgets the fact that talent could do something once and become better than a hard working individual's hundredth try.
So in reality the quote should be more like:
'Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Never Works.'
The second problem with this quote is that it assumes we want to beat people who don't work hard. The reality is working hard is the minimum these days. Everyone basically does similar amounts of work, in a similar amount of time. Therefore the only thing that separates them is talent.
So the way the real quote should be phrased is:
'Hard Work Never Beats Talent'
Why do I feel so strongly about this quote?
Well I believed it all my life.
Throughout my teenage years, school was my top priority. I was trying to get the highest grade in the class, and I attempted to do this by taking phenomenal notes and studying from right when I got home, all the way until one in the morning.
I didn't have any other option, as I was living with my grandparents, who weren't the most well off.
This was the only way I could get out of this life.
But every single time I would check the test results, I'd always be second.
The person who got first, had to be working harder than me right?
So I worked even harder. Weekends were sacrificed, time with friends was sacrificed, anything fun in my life was sacrificed.
Just for me to still get second.
This was when I realized, the first place student wasn't even working hard. He slept all throughout class, and seemed to not even care about studying. It looked like his main priority was talking to girls and joking around with his friends.
'I want that too.'
Envy, I wanted to be as talented as him. Maybe if I were born with a better brain, I didn't have to sacrifice so much. The friends I had before were gone. The love I had for life before was gone.
That was when I decided to stop trying in school. If I was gonna live as an untalented person, I might as well be untalented in something I love to do.
So during my 3rd year of highschool, I started coding a game.
Truth is gaming and video games have been my true passion throughout all my life. Before my parents passed, that was all I did. I even won a competition with a game I made a few years back.
So I poured all my energy into making an assassin game.
It was hard, and I didn't finish it up until my last year of college.
Those years were full of cup noodles and late nights but in the end it was worth it, right?
Well it was, kind of.
A bunch of youtubers I used to watch made videos about my game. But after the initial hype, there was a problem.
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[The Seven Royals]
[Rating: 3.5/5]
[Comments - 10567]
[Description: You are an assassin in the Dark Ages. Kill the seven corrupt royals to bring glory back to your country. There are people who will help you on your mission to assassinate all seven, but in the end you're alone. This is an open world game, and you have three lives. If you lose all three, you have to start all over, if you die within the three, you just restart the stage you were in. Good luck.
[Volkslayer356]
-This game is impossible, do not recommend it.
451 likes 6 dislikes
[StarOfNexus (World #121)]
-How do you defeat the Marquis? I've spent a year trying to kill the Marquis, but nothing works on him. Dude is like a sentient being. How did the developers make him this smart???
1032 likes 32 dislikes
[Replies 64]
[Teiresias (World #5)]
-Wait until you get to the duke. I'm convinced these royals are real human beings.
[Ilvoc1 (World #1)]
-The developers of this game are on something when they made it. If the developers play their own game they will realize it's impossible. I really wish for all the developers to go suffer and try to just kill the prince. Assuming they could even get there.
5673 likes 1841 dislikes
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To fix an impossible game of this level would take a couple years of coding. I could do this faster with a team, but I wasn't even making money from this game.
I made it free, since I knew the struggle of not having enough money to play a game.
I didn't add a shop, since I didn't want my game to become pay to win.
But in the end all the suffering I wanted to prevent my players from having was now all directed towards me.
I was still eating cup noodles every day, and had to hold onto every penny.
So to try to save the only thing I had going for me, I decided to livestream.
It was just one livestream, where I did a whole playthrough of killing all Seven Royals with only one life.
After spending a couple hours setting up the tools needed to livestream, I started.
'This is the full playthrough of my game, The Seven Royals.'
But after I said this my heart started pounding rapidly. I ignored it and started the tutorial, but soon it became unbearable.
I guess this was the side effects of surviving with only cup noodles.
'It was bound to happen.'
I thought as I was shriveling up on the ground.
Even after experiencing more of life, talent still beats hard work. There was always a way talent would win, it was just fate.
And I didn't try to fight it anymore.