Hustle culture. Toxic productivity. Workaholism. Millionaire mindset.
As university students, I’m sure most of us have come across at least of these terms in the past. If, like myself, you too have fallen victim to these, hopefully, my blog will demonstrate to you why these can have toxic effects.
Hustle Culture? What’s that?
So, to be more clear, hustle culture is basically the idea that you must strictly devote as much time as possible to working in order for you to be successful – and that is the minimum standard. This includes sacrificing many vital factors in one’s life, such as sleep, hobbies, and family time. According to hustle culture, if you don’t sacrifice such things, you’re not working hard enough. However, I argue that this narrative is very detrimental to one’s mental and physical health. Those of us who have suffered these consequences will very well understand where I’m coming from…but if you don’t or haven’t, here are some of my depictions of the language usually used by hustler culture advocates.
Why is it so bad?
The theme and glorification of sacrificing is one toxic trait we see in hustle culture. The pictures I’ve chosen (mostly from Pinterest) all promote the same misleading idea: don’t feel bad for sacrificing sleep or taking breaks, its essential for success.
Post A: It uses a first person pronoun that tries to make it more impactful and personal to the reader. It tries to convince the reader that it’s inevitable that you sacrifice sleep to reach your dream. The broadness of this post is a problem – how do you know what my dream is? How do you know I need to sacrifice sleep for it? We must question these posts before internalizing them…
Post B: This post makes the reader compare their “better” work ethic to the work ethic of their peers in an attempt to eliminate the guilt of not taking a break. It activates the downward social comparison, a phenomenon in psychology where we compare ourselves to those worse than us to make us feel better about our choices – even if these choices are harmful.
The theme of overworking yourself, which is depicted in these posts and many more, is just unrealistic. In reality, overworking yourself can cause burnouts, mental breakdowns, chronic stress, sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety…it’s just not worth it. Here are some more examples:
Learn from my mistake.
To be completely honest, I can’t tell you exactly what the right thing to do is, or how many hours exactly you have to put in order for you to be successful. However, what I do know is that it is important for us to be realistic, and remember that we are not robots. I wanted to briefly analyze 2 posts in order for me to show you how misleading and false these hustle culture-themed quotes can be. I made the naive mistake of believing them and taking them too seriously, so don’t repeat my mistake.
The pursuit of happiness does not equal the embrace of 80-hour weeks. Take some time. Read a newspaper. It’s a revolutionary act.
The New York Times
Some Helpful Resources
– An article to help with your mental wellbeing: “The Brewing Backlash Against Hustle Culture and Its Effects on Our Mental Health”
Discussion questions:
- Has hustle culture had an impact on you? If so, what was it?
- Do you think hustle culture can have a positive impact?
- Who do you think is most effected by hustle culture? Why?
- What work ethic do you recommend as an alternative to toxic productivity that comes from hustle culture?
I love this post! It deals with a very important issue, and I love that you included a video from Kati Morton; I respect her greatly. I went through a “hustle experience” in high school during the last two years. I did the IB program and it ruined me; the acute stress made me develop mental disorders that I have to this day. I was so sleep deprived for two years straight and the environment in my classes were so negative and competitive. It was an ugly experience, and I would never, ever want to go back again. I think hustle culture mostly affects people in competitive industries and academics. Of course, it also affects people who don’t have any other way of making a living and have to make sacrifices to survive, in which case it is totally understandable. But most of the time, we hustle because we strive for perfection. A great movie comes to mind called Whiplash about a drummer joining a jazz orchestra; his mental health deteriorates by his need for perfection, and I think the conductor in the movie is the epitome of hustle culture — so aggressive, waits for no one. It’s a big issue in our societies and it’s one of the main driving factors of my anxiety about the future and every single decision I make in my studies. It’s truly hard, but I believe we can make things better. We should demolish the global system of perfectionist standards and make our own system: be happy with what you do.
I agree with your point one million percent, and I love that you shared your story; thank you! I, too, struggled immensely with this, and I didn’t even realize it until 2 months ago…I realized my anxiety about the future is what actually drove me to study so much to the point where my family barely saw me for the past 3 years. I’m still struggling with this, but it’s important that I acknowledged it at least.
It’s good that you acknowledge this, and I know how you feel. Hopefully, things get better. There’s always someone to help if we need it