History Main / HardWorkFallacy

* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'': One episode has Will take up a job solely because he wants to be self made, like Uncle Phil, to the point of turning down assistance like his cousins. Uncle Phil reminds him that when he was making his way up, people did hold some doors open for him, and he in turn is holding doors open for Will and his kids, and others. Uncle Phil ''knows'' the value of a work ethic, but he also knows that that alone is not enough in the world.

* Zig-zagged in ''Film/{{Rudy}}''. The eponymous character works really hard in spite of having no athletic talent or societal advantages and achieves his goal of playing for the Notre Dame football team. ''However'', it's never even presented as a possibility that Rudy will ever become a ''good'' football player. His teammates have to insist on allowing him to suit up for a game simply because his hard work was an inspiration for the truly successful members of TheTeam. ''However'', when he's given the opportunity to play in a real game for two whole downs, he gets the sack.

* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', Earl gets a promotion from docker to appliance salesman based on hard work and determination, despite teasing from everyone else... and wins their respect. (The episode is a parody of the above-mentioned ''Film/{{Rudy}}'', even featuring a few of the actors from that movie.)

* ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/19341/alicorn Alicorn]]'' discusses this trope. Twilight is jealous of resentful of Rainbow Dash, who was born an alicorn with magical potential (although not ability) beyond the greatest archmage, whereas Twilight had to work for every bit of her power but still falls behind Rainbow. Local {{Jerkass}} Tristar points out that Twilight may have worked for her power, but she was still born a unicorn, in a unicorn-dominated city, got to attend the best school in the country, and was personally tutored by Princess Celestia. She had just as much privilege as Rainbow Dash, she's just not seeing it.

[[Fan Works]]

** The 2003 ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'' anime series is built on the idea of EquivalentExchange: if you put X in, then you get X out. Yes, it is a Real Life scientific law proven by UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton, but in-universe, it is also treated as a philosophy to live by. The final villain [[{{Deconstruction}} attempts to prove that real life is not so neat or predictable]] in order to [[BreakThemByTalking break the heroes near the final leg of the series]]. [[spoiler: Edward is also told point-blank by his father (who's the closest thing this series has to a BigGood) that the world in no way works according to an EquivalentExchange system. A major point in his argument is that nothing he could personally give up would be worth having two wonderful sons.]]

** The episode "Bart Gets an F" was a deconstruction of this fallacy. Bart has been failing his history class and is in danger of being HeldBackInSchool unless he can pass his final exam. He struggles greatly, but still buckles down and does his very best to study and prepare for the test. Then, the day he finally takes the test ...[[YankTheDogsChain he still fails.]] This was meant to teach the lesson that we can do everything right and still fail, and that hard work does not always guarantee success (especially poignant since Bart seems to genuinely struggle with the material instead of just being a lazy underachiever.)

* Defying this is the above-mentioned mantra of "Work smarter, not harder." When taken as more than just an excuse not to work your hardest, it means that knowing when and where to focus your efforts and resources will be more effective than just plowing through a situation on brute force.
* Likewise, the way to improve one's skill or talent at something is not just hard work, but "gainful practice"--in other words, pushing one's own limits and trying to learn new things, rather than just doing the same thing over and over again. This is why someone might spend years working at something without significantly improving, while some newcomer rapidly surpasses them by studying and practicing at the right things.
* A cornerstone of some American politicians' ideals is that anyone can be "rich". This idea is the basis of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream, but is difficult to reconcile with reality, as it ignores multiple factors like where you grew up, whether you had a good support environment or whether or not you were safe in your home or at school, and even pure dumb luck. It also isn't even close to possible for an ''entire society'' to live the life of millionaires since somebody has to clean the toilets, at least until we become advanced enough to develop robotics more cost-effective than cheap labour.[[note]]It's also been argued that toilet-cleaning, trash-collecting, etc. should be high-paying jobs, expressing thanks and esteem to those who do such work. Even in pure market terms, demand for sanitation is most certainly high enough to warrant it on paper.[[/note]] The basic concept of supply and demand also means that in order for money to be worth what it is, ''someone'' must have not enough of it.
* One of the cornerstones of the sales industry is that ''anyone'' can be an effective salesman as long as they work hard at selling. While working hard is indeed predictive of success in sales, other factors, like market fluctuation, the economy, selling the right product, and most especially learning proper sales techniques, also factor in in a major way.
* The fallacy of SurvivorshipBias thrives on this. To name a few examples, it's all too easy to forget that for every Google and Facebook that become Silicon Valley giants, there are dozens that crashed and burned like Webvan, Pets.com, Boo.com, and Friendster. Much is made of Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates dropping out of university to make it big in the tech sector, with little mention that they already had affluent family backgrounds as well as university and business connections, or that the universities they dropped out of were already nearly impossible to get into, such as Zuckerberg getting admitted to ''Harvard''. There's even less mention of the many university dropouts who wind up with [[PerpetualPoverty massive debts]] and [[SoulSuckingRetailJob dead-end jobs]] -- let alone the people who ''do'' finish college, get a degree, do everything right, and ''still'' (often owing to the way management manipulates things) end up in the unemployment line, on job-hunting websites, attending endless "workshops" and trying to "network".
* Almost any time someone unironically uses the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", it's a combination of this and DramaticallyMissingThePoint, as the original meaning of that saying was something like "do something patently impossible (or claim you did)", which should be obvious if you know what bootstraps actually are. (For those who don't, they are those little things sometimes attached to shoes to make them easier to pull on, and, believe it or not [[CaptainObvious no matter how hard you pull on your own shoes, you can't make yourself float off the ground.]])

* In ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' only the strongest and most worthy will emerge from their training group a Sith. [[TrainingFromHell The rest usually all perish]]. This trope's mentality is ingrained within Sith teachings. The problems with this soon become rather self-evident. The Sith trials serve the grim purpose of weeding out those who would not last long in [[TheEmpire the Sith Empire]], but if there's more than one capable acolyte, [[ThereCanOnlyBeOne only one can emerge alive]]. So, in the long run, this means that working hard to be strong enough to be a Sith isn't enough if there happens to be a more powerful rival in your group. This is made worse by the fact that some individuals are simply ''born'' with a stronger affinity with the Force than many could ever hope to learn. The Sith Warrior's storyline has you play the role of a powerful young acolyte from an ancient [[VillainousLineage Sith bloodline]] who has been brought into the Sith trials at the last minute. The strongest member of the group, Vemrin, fought his way up from nothing against Sith snobbery. Unfortunately for Vemrin, this new arrival is one of the most powerful acolytes to ever set foot in the Sith Academy. After the inevitable confrontation, and despite giving everything, Vemrin is slain.

%% * Discussed in [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-things-rich-people-need-to-stop-saying/ 6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying]] from ''Website/{{Cracked}}''.

* Mr. Money Mustache (who famously "retired" in his late-''twenties'' after saving hundreds of thousands of dollars from his job, and then lived off the interest) falls into this. Basically, he runs a blog on how to save a lot and be rich in only several years. Those who argue the absurdity of his steps[[note]]For example, MMM [[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs-over-50000-without-a-degree-part-1 suggested among other things]] being a [=YouTuber=] to make a decent living, while someone argued that few ''can'' succeed at it regardless of how hard they work.[[/note]] are mocked as "complainypants" and "not being badass enough". It doesn't help that he (and his wife, who supported him all the way) got near six-figure incomes ''right out of college'', something even the hardest-working people cannot get. In short, it required ''all'' the right things to happen to him (including not getting major illness, or a divorce, or a job market bust) to succeed.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The concept was discussed in "Hurricane Fluttershy". Fluttershy had several problems with flying fast, including childhood trauma and her not being the athletic type anyways. Even with all the training she does during the episode, her wing power remains mediocre at best. Still, what mattered most in the end was not her inability to brute force outstanding results through hard work alone, but that she had the courage to face her fears and was there for Rainbow Dash in a time of need.

* One of the cornerstones of the sales industry is that ''anyone'' can be an effective salesman as long as he works hard at selling. While working hard is indeed predictive of success in sales, other factors, like market fluctuation, the economy, selling the right product, and most especially learning proper sales techniques, also factor in in a major way.
* The fallacy of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias survivorship bias]] thrives on this. To name a few examples, it's all too easy to forget that for every Google and Facebook that become Silicon Valley giants, there are dozens that crashed and burned like Webvan, Pets.com, Boo.com, and Friendster. Much is made of Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates dropping out of university to make it big in the tech sector, with little mention that they already had affluent family backgrounds as well as university and business connections, or that the universities they dropped out of were already nearly impossible to get into, such as Zuckerberg getting admitted to ''Harvard''. There's even less mention of the many university dropouts who wind up with [[PerpetualPoverty massive debts]] and [[SoulSuckingRetailJob dead-end jobs]] -- let alone the people who ''do'' finish college, get a degree, do everything right, and ''still'' (often owing to the way management manipulates things) end up in the unemployment line, on job-hunting websites, attending endless "workshops" and trying to "network".

* Almost any time someone unironically uses the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", it's a combination of this and DramaticallyMissingThePoint, as the original meaning of that saying was something like "do something patently impossible (or claim you did)", which should be obvious if you know what bootstraps actually are (for those who don't, they are those little things sometimes attached to shoes to make them easier to pull on, and, believe it or not [[CaptainObvious no matter how hard you pull on your own shoes, you can't make yourself float off the ground.]])

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The episode "Bart Gets an F" was a deconstruction of this fallacy. Bart has been failing his history class and is in danger of being HeldBackInSchool unless he can pass his final exam. He struggles greatly, but still buckles down and does his very best to study and prepare for the test. Then, the day he finally takes the test ...[[YankTheDogsChain he still fails.]] This was meant to teach the lesson that we can do everything right and still fail, and that hard work does not always guarantee success (especially poignant since Bart seems to genuinely struggle with the material instead of just being a lazy underachiever.)

The idea behind the CharlesAtlasSuperpower. A staple of movies from TheEighties. Contrast HardWorkHardlyWorks when the extra effort doesn't achieve much and YouWereTryingTooHard where the extra effort ''prevents'' you from succeeding. Contrast also InstantExpert, and BornLucky.

[[quoteright:325:[[Webcomic/ToonHole https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/markonworld.png]]]]

A staple of movies from TheEighties. Contrast HardWorkHardlyWorks when the extra effort doesn't achieve much and YouWereTryingTooHard where the extra effort ''prevents'' you from succeeding.

The idea behind the CharlesAtlasSuperpower. Contrast HardWorkHardlyWorks, InstantExpert, and BornLucky.

-->'''Bodie:''' We like them little bitches on the chessboard.\\

* ''Series/TheWire'': Deconstructed in the character of 'Bodie', a lowly soldier in The Game who figures that by doing everything he's told and working hard in the drug trade he can eventually advance beyond his station. By the later seasons, he's still in the same position if not worse off, and realizes that The Game is rigged.

For example, sometimes ''[[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections who]]'' [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections you know]] is more important than ''[[EncyclopaedicKnowledge what]]'' [[EncyclopaedicKnowledge you know]]. Or, your [[AllLoveIsUnrequited unrequited]] LoveInterest isn't dating ''you'' [[OccamsRazor because they're already dating and satisfied with someone else]]. Or, the so-called SelfMadeMan ''did'' indeed have help from other people, even if it wasn't direct or reserved only for him (e.g., parental or public education, housing, healthcare, etc.). In addition, it is a fallacy because it is ''unfalsifiable''; i.e., no matter how hard you worked, if you failed others could just claim however much you worked wasn't "hard enough", and never lay out an explicit definition of how much work is required to do whatever it is. Besides, we can't ''all'' be rich CEOs, there'd be no employees. And if everyone's rich, then nobody is.

For example, sometimes ''[[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections who]]'' [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections you know]] is more important than ''[[EncyclopaedicKnowledge what]]'' [[EncyclopaedicKnowledge you know]]. Or, your [[AllLoveIsUnrequited unrequited]] LoveInterest isn't dating ''you'' [[OccamsRazor because they're already dating and satisfied with someone else]]. Or, the so-called SelfMadeMan ''did'' indeed have help from other people, even if it wasn't direct or reserved only for him (e.g., parental or public education, housing, healthcare, etc.). In addition, it is a fallacy because it is ''unfalsifiable''; i.e., no matter how hard you worked, if you failed others could just claim however much you worked wasn't "hard enough", and never lay out an explicit definition of how much work is required to do whatever it is.

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* Likewise, the way to improve one's skill or talent at something is not just hard work, but "gainful practice" - in other words, pushing one's own limits and trying to learn new things, rather than just doing the same thing over and over again. This is why someone might spend years working at something without significantly improving, while some newcomer rapidly surpasses them by studying and practicing at the right things.

* One of the cornerstones of the sales industry is that ''anyone'' can be an effective salesman as long as he works hard at selling. While working hard is indeed predictive of success in sales, other factors - like market fluctuation, the economy, selling the right product, and most especially learning proper sales techniques - also factor in in a major way.

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