Commentary

Hard work what &&@@!!! key?

JACKASS SEY DI worl' no level. Jackass sey dem eva a tell we lie as pickney, bout 'hard work is de key to success', an some a we grow up fool fool an believe it.

There are few things that get Jackass teet gritting, hooves pawing and ears back like his distant cousin Shrek than telling lies to children and expecting them to live up to it when they grow up.

Half-lie

And what is even worse than an out and out lie is a half-lie, the one with a real truth buried in it but with that missing piece without which you will never get anywhere. It is like trying to do a 9,999 piece jigsaw puzzle - without knowing that 99 pieces are missing.

So, we get all the kids and, as a society, we are growing them up (whatever 'growing them up' means, from Passa Passa to Rugrats) to be all they can be. Key to maximizing their potential is getting them to work hard at doing so, so we teach them that "hard work is the key to success".

Fair enough. So they work and work and work, pay rent, student's loans, car loans, mortgage, work some more, go to hospital with high blood pressure, come out, work some more ­ and as they get that first heart attack they think back to that teacher in primary school and curse the day they ever heard him or her say 'hard work is the key to success'.

Keys to success

Because, by itself, it is not.

Hard work and opportunity are the keys to success. 'Opportunity' is the key word here. For example, there is no one who can convince Jackass that the man who throws up the drinks on the truck does not work hard. If you want proof, stop and look at the next person you see doing the job. Note the muscles, note the lean look that people spend years in the gym huffing and puffing, praying to get.

Does the person who work in an air-conditioned office work harder than that person slinging the drink crates up on the truck? Hell no! But who is going to be judged as being more successful? Not the drinks truck man, for sure.

It is a matter of opportunity ­ opportunity to learn, opportunity to earn, opportunity to own.

Matter of opportunity

Another example. Somewhere in Jamaica, there is the great grandson of a plantation owner during slavery, living well and master of all the land he surveys when he wakes, stretches, scratches and erupts in the mornings. Chopping the grass on a section of the plantation is a youngster whose great, great grandma was a slave on this very same plantation all those years ago. Now, is the man in the house stretching a harder worker than the man in the field? Have any of his ancestors been harder workers than any of the chopper's ancestors?

Hell no! So why is one ambling to the double sided fridge, while the other is hoping for a piece of ice to chill the 'wash'?

Opportunity is the key word here, opportunity.

You are either born with, buck up in it, steal it or wait all your life, working and dreaming of success, while it passes you by.

Jackass sey di worl' no level. Jackass sey hard wuk no wut widdout apparchunity - an still yu haffi prepare, cause wen it come wan time it no mus come back.