# Are we rowing for nothing?

- Author: Muhammed Furkan Yılmaz (@mfurkanyilmazzz)
- Canonical: https://furkanmind.com/en/mind/are-we-rowing-for-nothing
- Status: Testing (testing)
- Topic: Effort and the long game (https://furkanmind.com/en/topics/emek-ve-uzun-vade)
- Published: 2026-10-08
- Updated: 2026-10-08
- Language: en (translated from tr)
- License: CC BY 4.0
- Note: AI translation of Furkan's Turkish original (Claude via MCP) — not yet reviewed.

## Thesis

The effort we put in does pay off somewhere, but usually not right away and not where we expect it; the only real measure is being able to honestly say yes to "did I do everything I could?"

## Summary

## It started with a reply

On October 8, 2026, someone wrote to me on Threads. They said they had no motivation left to do anything, to take any kind of action. They were talking about putting in effort and getting nothing back. I told them what I do myself. That same evening I said the same thing to the camera.

"Did we row for nothing? Did we study for nothing, are we living for nothing?" This question is everywhere, especially in my age group. It feels like everything we do hits a wall. To me it's a question that quietly rejects a lot of things.

## It pays off, just not where you expect

I made videos for years. Most were in English, some I shot together with Kemal. From where I stand today, I don't think that effort was wasted.

We do get something back for our effort somewhere. It's just that the place may not be the one we were expecting. Or there's an effort gap in between that you have to fill, and you don't get anywhere until you fill it.

Once you set out, you row and row and it feels like the boat isn't moving. Sometimes the boat really isn't moving. But the current is taking you somewhere, and you end up having to adapt to that current. I think that's a good thing.

## It's about how we look at the timeline

The feeling of rowing for nothing comes from how we look at the timeline. The effort you put in comes back 3 years later, 5 years later, sometimes 10, and you cash it in somewhere. That's how the world works. Until that moment comes, you spend the whole time thinking "I did it and nothing happened." But what you did was going to be useful 5 years later.

The education and outlook we were given is a bit of a 1950s mindset. A friend's mother retired from the same place she started working at, and she expects my friend to keep working at one place too. Getting a job somewhere and staying for 30 years while your standard of living holds and your work stays fine: that world doesn't exist anymore. If you ask me, it won't come back either.

Today I know how to code and that's valuable currency, but in 3-4 years it won't matter much. So did I waste my effort? This is where we need a mental shift. We live in a time where we have to keep changing and improving ourselves, maybe more intensely than any generation before us.

## One question: Did I do everything I could?

The only thing we can really do in life is decide on things and put effort into them. There's the human side, the state, the general state of the world. Stack all of it up and it feels like you have no influence at all. But your influence is exactly as big as the responsibility you were given.

My only lens is this: Did I do everything I could? If I did, the rest is out of my hands. I did everything I could and still didn't get the job, didn't succeed, couldn't build a good relationship. All of that is possible. But if you can answer "was there anything else I could have done?" with "no, there wasn't, I really did everything", then it's settled. Being able to say that with a clear conscience is, to me, the only way to know you weren't rowing for nothing.

## Nobody wants that kind of success

I'm not praising sacrifice here. There's a fantasy out there: "give from your life, do this, do that, and succeed." If success comes that way, it makes more sense not to take it. What you give from yourself, your health and your family never comes back. Success, on the other hand, can be earned again.

## A promise to myself

On the day I shot this video I felt unwell in the morning, went to the doctor and started medication. I wasn't as motivated as the day before. But I had promised myself I would add a new video every day in October, and I was there to keep that promise. Nobody else needs to know that. I know it.

If I can't keep the promises I make to myself, nothing else really matters. The strange thing is that the promise we break fastest is usually the one we make to ourselves. It's the most important building block for keeping something going and for proving to yourself that you're not working for nothing.

## From 2015 to today

In 2015 I was a second-year university student, and I got into all this because I wanted to get married. We couldn't afford to buy an e-commerce site, so I had to learn webmastering and we built our own site. It saved us a big expense. But it took me another 4-5 years to really make money from this work again. In between I did e-commerce and took on the occasional corporate website job. After that, life brought me here. All I did was do everything I could.

## Not a quitting point, a starting point

Maybe right now you're sitting there thinking "why do I go to work tomorrow, why am I still working on this relationship, I can't tell where this company I'm building will go but I keep showing up every day." If you run a shop, you open it every day and there's no business. You come home with no money in your pocket, or with no one who listens to you.

There's a point where you believe your effort will never pay off. Once you reach it, it gets really hard. But that point isn't a place to quit. It's a place to start.

## Open questions

- Is it possible to know in advance how long the effort gap will last?
- Where is the line between "I did everything I could" and burning yourself out?

## Derivatives

- YouTube video, Boşuna mı kürek çekiyoruz? (11 min, Turkish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgAhhmZ5fE4
- 9 short clips and a LinkedIn teaser were cut from the video.

## Distributions

- YouTube @Muhammed Furkan Yılmaz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYAk6D14aCo — views 0, likes 0, replies 0
- YouTube @Muhammed Furkan Yılmaz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvW-wj8VX00 — views 0, likes 0, replies 0
- YouTube @Muhammed Furkan Yılmaz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0mrey_VhXo — views 0, likes 0, replies 0
- YouTube @Muhammed Furkan Yılmaz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgAhhmZ5fE4 — views 5, likes 0, replies 2

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