99% of Effort is Wasted – And That’s Okay
Let’s be honest.
Most of the things we do… don’t matter in the end.
Harsh? Maybe. True? Probably.
We spend years on a degree that doesn’t get us a job.
We fall in love, build dreams with someone—only to part ways.
We write, we create, we ideate—and most of it never sees the light of day.
We stress about the future, overthink the past, and exhaust ourselves on imagined problems.
We give our 100% to ideas, projects, relationships, passions—yet, 99% of them fail, fade, or are forgotten.
But maybe… that’s not a bug. It’s the design.
The Philosophy of Wasted Effort
Philosophers like Albert Camus and Søren Kierkegaard hinted at this.
Camus wrote about Sisyphus, condemned to roll a boulder uphill forever, only for it to roll back down. Yet he said: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Why?
Because meaning isn’t in the result. It’s in the doing.
In giving our best, knowing well it might not “work out.”
In showing up. In trying. In caring, even when the world doesn’t.
But Isn’t That Pessimistic?
Not really.
It’s liberating.
When we accept that 99% might go to waste, we stop obsessing over the outcome.
We learn to dance, even if nobody claps.
We write, even if no one reads.
We love, even if it ends.
We invest, even if the return is zero.
Because the process becomes the reward.
Why 1% Still Matters
That 1%—the song you finish, the smile you get back, the stranger you helped, the one connection that lasts—
That 1% feels divine.
And it exists only because you went through the 99%.
You don’t get to it by shortcutting the process. You get to it by embracing the failure, the mess, the uncertainty.
So What Do We Do?
We keep doing.
Without overthinking results.
Without being too harsh on ourselves.
With humility and effort.
Not because it’ll definitely succeed, but because doing something is better than standing still.
This is not about giving up.
It’s about giving in—to the truth that not everything we do will change the world.
But it might change us.
In the End
Let’s live with the freedom that comes from knowing most of it won’t work out.
And let’s do it anyway.
Because trying is in our hands.
Outcome isn’t.