Immediacy is a big problem in today’s society.

We have, to a great extent, lost those most virtuous of qualities. Patience, determination, resolve, persistence, perseverance, endurance, pushing forward, resisting obstacles, and discouragement.

We’ve sold them for a false, glittering deity of instant gratification.

Today, internet has changed the way we live our lives more than any other technological medium yet. We’re connected in ways previous generations couldn’t even have dreamed about.

We’ve lost something precious with this technology, though. We’ve forgotten what hard work looks like.

Shocking, isn’t it?

But here’s the thing:

Immediacy has become a big problem. We click to watch our favorite show. We swipe right for a date. We have Amazon deliver our object of desire in a day, maybe even this same afternoon. We ask our phone where to find success. We google where to get the best job in the world. We post our photos for instant likes. We publish articles for instant claps.

We feel the endorphins rush as likes and claps streamed in (which studies have repeatedly linked to narcissism).

We want the object of our desire now and if it takes more than a moment; we get restless.

Thanks to the internet, we have more resources than ever. Yet we’ve forgotten the meaning of hard work. We’ve forgotten success, like a slow-growing plant, takes time to cultivate.

You can’t “Buy Now” success. You can’t swipe for a solid relationship. You can’t post for self-worth. Google won’t answer the deepest questions in your heart. Nor medium.

You’ll have to do some digging for that.

And digging takes time.

All the resources the internet provides won’t make you successful.

Has googling ‘how to be successful’ ever made you a successful person?

I’m guessing not…

Everyone is willing to google questions they have. But no one is willing to put down their phones and dig for answers in the actual world.

I am not saying internet is bad. It is a powerful tool. But it doesn’t do the work for us.

Resilience is a skill more valuable than any resource on the internet. You become good at something, anything through digging. And digging takes time. That’s how hard work looks like. This is true no matter what you do, where you live, or who you are.

The internet gives us enormous resources. But we need to do the hard work. My blog became successful because I committed. I showed up. I did the work. Every single day. I wanted to quit so many times because editors rejected my writing.

But I stuck with it.

Yes, I used resources on the internet to teach myself how to be a talented writer. But most importantly, I wrote and published every single day for the past three years.

That is how success works. With time, the rejections became approvals. Never hearing from clients again became long-term retainers.

It’s simple, and it’s been the same drill for success forever.

Immediacy is waiting for the object of your desire to knock on your door right this minute. Hard work is doing something as many times as it takes until you nail it.

To achieve anything you want, you have to work hard.

Have you seen Rafael Nadal, the world’s champion in tennis, wielding his racquet in his left hand? He is famous for his unique playing style, delivering his left-handed groundstrokes with unnerving topspin and unfailing consistency.

Unless you’re a tennis fan, you may never guess Nadal is naturally right-handed.

He did not become successful because he googled ‘how to be a world champion’. He became a world champion by working hard for years. He trained with his left hand hoping it would give a slight advantage over his future opponents. After all, most of them practice against other right-handed players and are better at returning their shots.

Nadal’s dominant hand is still the one he uses to write and eat and live. But his non-dominant hand is the one he uses on the courts. Both hands belong to a world champion.

That’s how hard work looks like.

The distinguishing factor in becoming successful goes beyond the internet. It lies in your hard work. In your grit. In you doing something as many times as it takes until you nail it.

Remember how to work hard.

Before the existence of the internet, you didn’t sit on your couch and browsed the internet looking for answers. You went out and looked for them, no matter how long it took.

If you did not find the answer in your city, you traveled to another state and looked for it. If you still did not find the answer, you traveled to another country or continent looking for your answer.

You honored hard work.

Now?

Not so much.

Even with the existence of the internet, you need to work hard to be successful. You need to spend years to succeed.

The internet will never magically deliver success on your doorsteps.

Think for a moment. If you are always looking for answers from the internet, you’ve probably forgotten what hard work looks like. I’m hoping you will get back to those virtuous qualities. The determination and persistence to work hard to achieve what you want.