“99% of effort will ultimately be wasted.

Obviously, no effort is completely wasted, because we can always learn something in the process of trying. Any experience can become an opportunity for learning. For example, looking back on one's academic career, 99% of the papers written, books read, and exercises done at the time are not applicable to the real world. Some of the geography and history knowledge you learned was never put to use, a foreign language you studied is no longer used, and some math knowledge you have completely forgotten.

Of course, the learning experience at school did teach us some things. For instance, you understood the importance of effort, some ideas subtly became your mental drive, or to some extent prompted you to pursue your current career, and so on. However, at least from the goal-oriented perspective of the real world, only 1% of the effort you put in at school has paid off.”