I believe in the power of the hard-working individual as a driving force. Hard work is the engine of our survival and the driving force that has propelled us to the top of our food chain for the past 200,000 years. People sometimes say that the human race is in decline, but I couldn't disagree more with that. Yes, today's problems are enormous and more than worthy of us, but they are problems that we will tackle the same way we always have, and that's one by one. I was less than 5 years old when I started playing the piano. Playing the piano is not like playing in a band or orchestra where you only spend a fraction of the time playing and even less time practicing. When playing the piano, you cannot hide how long you practice, because there is a direct link between effort and reward that is always true. I never wanted to play the piano myself. It has always been my parents' choice and their desire to involve me in extracurricular activities. But as I grew older, they also became interested in piano exams. ABRSM, the associate board of the Royal School of Music, conducts more than 650,000 examinations per year in more than 93 countries around the world. When I learned that my parents had registered me for the exams, I was shocked. I had been playing the piano for over 5 years but I had never had such an experience. It turned out to be more difficult than I ever thought possible. My sister and I would spend hours together - she would check off scales I hadn't yet memorized on an Excel sheet at the end of each night's workout. The hardest part of an exam like this is not playing the notes. A piano has 88 keys, none of which pose a challenge to play. The hardest part is playing the role not... middle of paper... of humanity, which makes us who we are. That's what I believe. In the coming days I will continue to add more details. I will look in more detail at how the piano exam developed my view of hard work. I can also talk about another example. Hard work matters everywhere we look. If we look around us, there is nothing great that is not the pinnacle of hours of hard work. There is no reward without effort, just as there is no harvest without plowing. I think it is important to strongly illustrate my one and only point which is the close link between effort and reward and to link it to my experiences playing the piano since I was less than 5 years old. One thing I would like to ask is if I need more than one example. I've seen other people's work and want to know if I need more than my piano example to support my ideas about hard work..