[elliotbnvl]

Ahhh that lines up with a thought I had recently: you get out of life what you put into it. I am beginning to believe that there's some kind of metaphysical rule here that is true everywhere, all the time.

So maybe the solution is: find the hardest stuff to do and do the crap out of it.

[AntiDyatlov]

I really don't think that's true, you can put a lot of effort into a wrongheaded strategy, netting you no or bad results.

Conversely, a good strategy can get you good results without that much effort.

[ahnick]

Wrongheaded strategies that net you bad results, often result in lessons and ideas that can be further pursued on their own merits.

[elliotbnvl]

The followup thought / concern that occurs: what if the number of hard things is going down?

[Barbing]

I would have imagined it's going up while the percentage of people who are capable of doing the hardest things is going down.

Not that I know much of anything.

[pixl97]

We probably need to split apart things like "hard" and "both hard and useful".

Just because you're doing something hard, doesn't mean anyone wants it.

Just because you're doing something useful doesn't mean you're going to get paid much for it.

Just because something is hard and useful doesn't mean someone is going to pay you for the cost of the effort.