Why It's Not Cool To Overwork Yourself In The Name Of Hustle
Hustle culture instills in people this guilt Guilt when we spend time doing anything that wont fulfill a goal or make money. Most people dont believe that you can have work-life balance Apparently its a myth for our generation And it couldnt be truer.
Google, Pinterest, Instagram, Unsplash, Tumblr and many more such platforms where users post pictures and interact with eachother, all give the same results when you search for the term 'hustle'.
What do you find? Phone wallpapers plastered with quotes like, 'hustle hard girl', 'hustle until you no longer have to introduce yourself' or my personal favoruite, 'good things come to those who hustle'. And if phone wallpapers weren't enough, you have these and a plethora other similar quotes plastered across notebooks, journals, phone covers, laptop covers and mugs. There are also inspirational photos of people supposedly hustling while getting to work, travelling, looking all serious in suits, and more.
Search results for hustle on Pinterest
I wake up at 7:30 am. I am writing my first email out to my boss at 7:45. I reach office at 9:00 AM and I am working on different stories, interviews, ideas and themes until 6:30 PM. It then takes me an hour to get home. Once I enter home, around 7:30 PM, I leave for my yoga and strength and conditioning class at 8:00 PM until 10:00 PM. I come home around 10:30 PM and write on most days before sleeping at 11:00 PM.
The only problem? I am constantly left with the feeling that I am not working hard enough. My schedule has no time for friends, texting or even meeting someone for a drink. I still don't think I am doing enough. On most days, I feel really guilty of sleeping for full 8 hours because I know a lot of people, somewhere would be working their ass off in order to live the life they have always dreamed of.
And that's my issue with this hustle culture that we'll seemingly never be able to escape - it sells lies.
I literally don't have the time to do even the most mundane tasks. For instance, I don't have the time to take my dog coco for a bath. I haven't been able to take my sister out for brunch for the past six months. I haven't treated my friends for drinks after getting a job. Why not? Because I am burned out. Why am I burned out? Because I have internalized the idea that I should be working constantly. Why have I done that to myself? Simply because its been reinforced by society, friends, parents, extended family - everyone.
A lot of people my age don't have a social life anymore. We are always working. The hustle culture instills in people this guilt. Guilt when we spend time doing anything that won't fulfill a goal or make money. A lot of people respond to emails during flights only to hit send when they land. They are answering calls on days when they aren't supposed to be working or when they are away to see their family. Most people don't believe that you can have work-life balance. Apparently, it's a myth for our generation. And it couldn't be truer.
And those extra number of hours that we put in and work ourselves to exhaustion? Well, it's not doing our minds, bodies, creativity or our work any good. It's making it all worse. How? Because it's taking us away from family, from friends and from everything we love to do that plays a huge role in how we perform at work.
The goal should be to hustle. Hustle even on Sundays but not at the cost of your mental and physical health. Even eight hours of work, five days a week has the potential to help you achieve your goals. Don't be so hard on yourself.
