I recently re-read “How to Pick Your Life Partner” by Tim Urban and something Tim said inspired this post. I don’t know why I would spend so much time reading about choosing life partners😅 Perhaps it comes from being rushed into getting married soon because I am ALREADY 22 any time I have a conversation with older Vietnamese these days. If you are in the same boat as me, I recommend you read this article. It’s healing in some ways hehe.

Tim talks about the idea of human happiness through a metaphor: “Life is a Picture, But You Live in a Pixel”. When we look at a human life up close, we might see that it was just an ordinary Wednesday, again and again and again and that achieving happiness was all about learning to be happy on a routine Wednesday.

Human happiness doesn’t function in sweeping strokes, because we don’t live in broad summations—we’re stuck in the tiny unglamorous folds of the fabric of life, and that’s where our happiness is determined.

The same idea applies to marriage. From afar, a great marriage is a “sweeping love story” but up close it’s made out of 20,000 mundane Wednesdays.

Marriage is not celebrating the closing of the deal on the first house—it’s having dinner in that house for the 4,386th time. And it’s certainly not Valentine’s Day. Marriage is Forgettable Wednesday. Together.

The same idea can apply to work, to relationships between companies and employees. Work is not just the one million dollar idea, not just the day we celebrate milestones, not the signal of the title or the brand. Work is 200, 2000, 20000 normal Wednesdays that lead to continuous success. Companies cannot rush to acquire good talents. Talents cannot rush to find the right workplace. And once talent and company meet one another, success requires both sides to have the determination to be good and continuously get better.

It’s the day-in and day-out commitment to perform well.