Again on discipline.

After writing this post on the importance (or not) of discipline, I found this article (via Gala Darling), very interesting and very true. I even wrote a letter to the director of Gioia, the magazine where I first read about Amy Chua, mentioning both the NY Times article and my post, and she was kind enough to publish my letter on the magazine.
So, I got a comment from a lovely reader. She writes in italian, so let me synthetize it for non-italian speakers: she agrees with what I said, and writes she found herself more or less in the same situation after getting her degree. She reflects on the fact that her colleagues who were less brilliant school-wise, but have good networking skills, have had more succes than her in their careers. She is very "matter of fact", and did not write in a complaining tone: it's the voice of someone who just recognized how things work.

I would really love to hear from people coming from other Countries. I wrote what I think about Italy, where hard work takes longer to pay back than networking skills, and I have seen how in the US networking has its importance, but as much as hard work and good skills in one's field.

What happens in the rest of EU? In Asia? I am inclined to think hard work is mostly rewarded, but I'd like to hear the experiences of people from abroad.