Hustling for the Sake of Hustling
Today’s culture has a strong narrative about hustling. If you aren’t happy in life; want financial freedom or want to ‘succeed’ - start hustling for it. We seem to respond to everything with this one, mystical word and are unforgiving if this idea isn’t followed.
But what’s it all about? Why do we need to start hustling and what does it even mean? Where did this word come from? And, is it working?
Hustle. Hustle. Hustle.
Hustle is short term. It is in your face, do it today and worry about re-charging the batteries another time. It’s trying to do everything all at once, right now.
It’s pretty hard to ignore the fact that we are becoming obsessed with hustling. Gen Z want to seek new opportunities from life and have to go about this in an innovative way compared to the generations before. We have had to optimise to be the very best workers possible. We have challenged the way previous generations have thought about jobs and employment. Hustle is our supposed transport to a better future.
Hustle is now a buzz word, with all sorts of connotations. But originally, Hustle was a negative term. It seems that now it has turned into something that is admired and desired. Hustle has been defined as: ‘a swindle, illegal business activity’; ‘to shake, to toss’; ‘push roughly or shove’ to the more modern-day associations of ‘pushing activity in the interest of success’ and ‘working busily and moving quickly’.
Every year, it seems new names are given to creative new endeavours, that fit into the hustle narrative. There are now hundreds of potential hustles with the list ever-growing. It seems in this day, everything and anything can be monetised. You can even monetise monetisation - explaining to people how to monetise.
The perpetual hustle attitude seems embedded and reinforced everywhere. “Dream, hustle, profit, repeat” is imprinted on Instagram quotes, mugs and just about everything else.
The Origination and Expansion of Hustle Culture
Society highly rewards the ‘struggle’ and ‘grind’. There is criticism of rest and a constant stream of noise for us to tap into. The idea of more, more, more is pummelled and it’s pretty hard to avoid. Plus, when it is seen as a route to success, that requires just work and nothing else it seems an exciting and possible opportunity to achieve something.
The attitude towards the typical 9-5 is on a decline. Gen Z are aspiring to be entrepreneurial, and to compete differently to others due to the changing economic circumstances. The deemed alternative of working regular hours in a regular job is known and isn’t as appealing nowadays. With ever improving technology, more business opportunities are opening up. Social media has also boosted the attention of hustling.
The unknown and elusive nature of hustle means that it is appears interesting but also highlights that we do not understand the true reality of it. We have a narrow idea of what it really means to hustle as we only see the fast cars, follower growth and large profits through social media.
We have ended up gradually shifting our mindset to always look for opportunities, searching for gaps, working and being productive. Whether it is sending one more email during lunch or tweaking your website. All of this takes you out of your physical environment and into one of many possibilities. However, no matter how much you do, it will never be as much as there is stuff to do. In a perpetual hustle mode, you can never have your hustle appetite satisfied.
We end up in a productivity cycle, where we free up time which gets filled with more stuff to do. We get productive at one side hustle so fill it with another.
Does Hustling Work?
We seem to take joy from long nights, failure and struggles. However, do these things align with our values. Are we convincing ourselves and others by making the hustle seem fancy, complicated, and work related.
We go about our lives proactively expressing how busy we are, but fail to mention our tiredness. Very few people would inform their boss that they are completely exhausted. Tiredness and associated feelings have become shameful. We want to be seen as bright and capable, we want to be viewed as this 100% of the time, by absolutely everybody. Very often, we cover up our fatigue with an extra cup of coffee or the latest beauty products in order to make us look radiant. Is this worth it – it seems a high cost to pay for the appearance of being busy.
Self-help books advocate being productive all the time, which in turn often referred to as being busy. However, we have to question whether this is the best thing for our futures. Whether striving to be productive is the thing we should be striving towards.
It is important to question whether all of this hustling is in order to prove something or to seek approval. Grinding and hustling isn’t the most attractive, enjoyable or worthwhile thing to do. However, it is easy to see how ‘making a quick buck’ is potentially intriguing.
In a working all day and night environment, we lose the ability to switch off which will impact us in the longer term even if we are making a few quid in the short term. Hustling reduces our ability turn off effectively.
In many ways, working long nights and struggling for hours on end, could be viewed as a warning sign. A sign that something has gone wrong or that it could be done better or differently. We should focus on doing things better, and not simply more of them.
We scroll through Instagram looking at the top 1%, the 1% highest growth and profit achieving hustlers and see exuberance oozing on their accounts. In reality, the hustle life has become over-glamorised, as the long nights and losses along the way are hidden from view.
The productive, hustle culture we live in with the ever-increasing pressure we put on ourselves is not sustainable. Feeling like we have not done enough compared to an unrealistic standard is not healthy and will not lead to a future we want to be in. There are terms banded around to counter this, such as ‘mindful productivity’ but what does this even mean. Mindfully working all day every day?
The Anti-dote and Alternative
I believe that we should not encourage the hustle. We can instead me more intentional and thoughtful with the activities we anticipate in.
We can focus on working sensibly and smarter instead of working harder and doing more, especially when often it is for the sake of it. Focusing on important parts of your life, like relationships and being healthy whilst also working towards the projects you wish is a more balanced, better approach.
We can certainly place less of a need to make a quick buck and to monetise everything we do. There is no issue on working with projects, it is more the relentless, unforgiving approach that is the issue. Challenges will arise for Gen Z and we may need to do things differently to other generations. But hustling for the sake of hustle is not the answer. It is not the magic carpet that will result in unworldly success or make us millions in the process. It may make a bit of short term cash, but at the expense of potentially long term, damaging health consequences.
