hustle culture and capitalism

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hustle culture and capitalism

Evidently, buying into the promotion of a culture as toxic as lov[ing] the grind is yet another instance of misplaced trust by placing it on influencers rather than health experts. As the economy is supposedly booming, many Americansespecially black peopleare forced to take on multiple side-hustles in order to survive. And thats precisely why the trend of promoting hustle culture is dangerous especially since its designed to appeal to our insecurity-riddled existence, more so now than ever before. Whats obvious, of course, is that we end up nowhere close to the destination that, well, doesnt exist. We should celebrate unscripted lives that include spending time with friends . Rest is revolution. And with the state of the worlds climate among other things, having more forms of capitalism probably isnt for the best right now. Entertainment, tech, pop culture writer with a keen interest in discussing current events. Then ask what actions you can take so youre drawn from a deeper, personal calling instead of outside hustle pressures. Driving for Uber is a hustle. What daily activities are we able to prioritize that allow us to turn our brain and body off? His tweet said, If there were 25 hours a day, Id still want to work 26 hours. We begin to believe that depriving our bodies of rest and proper care in order to work more, we can become worthy. But what most dont know is that a century ago, the term hustle was associated with stereotypes and the realities of what it means to work as a Black person. As evidently shown, the disproportionate opportunities being displayed to certain groups of people makes one wonder if capitalist societies are rooting for the underdogs or reinforcing the status quo. Prolonged physical and psychological stress impairs the body's stability, causing diseases or even sudden death. Why Do Women Remember More Dreams Than Men Do? As most of the world has turned to work online and from home, it is not difficult to get sucked into constantly working, most of the time its even unconscious. An 1894 article from The Los Angeles Times recounted how a young woman was sex trafficked and "told that she must 'hustle' for herself." When influencers with as much clout and following endorse hustle culture, theyre basically glorifying a system built on structural inequalities and upholding it as the perfectly normal standard of functioning. Scrolling through my Twitter feed I came across The Nap Ministry., The account was founded by Tricia Hersey, a Black woman, and its description reads: We examine the liberating power of naps. But as the idea of radical rest has increased in popularity and size, and as just about everyone has their own take on how rest should be done, Ive found that there has been an increasing lack of nuance in the ways in which we talk about revolutionary rest, and Im hoping to inject some of that nuance here. She can only lament over her unfulfilled future plans and dreams "I've got to get out of here. Its that time of the year when posts about how if this year didnt bring out the hustle in you then you arent made for success. Hustle culture is dangerous in the sense that it praises overworking and prioritizing work overall which results in shaming (both intentional and unintentional) people who dont want to work all the time for monetary success. Now, I would not blame Elon Musk as the cause of all this (I am sure that the hustle environment within the sector existed before him), but he is definitely promoting such behavior. These external and internal pressures backfire, undermine your ability, and create unnecessary stress and ultimately burnout. Its a revolutionary act. Norman quoted him: For the last few years, the only reason this place still existed is because we loved it. The upper echelons of corporate America are beginning to reject so-called "hustle culture." Prioritizing work as your major contribution to society, so to avoid guilt and shame of not being good at work is harmful. In the end, capitalism values profit over the environment, animals, human lives, and more. Shamanis celebration of the hustle is not isolated. PostedOctober 2, 2019 Its easy to work on autopilot. If you liked this newsletter and want to support my work, please consider subscribing here: Ijeoma Oluo: Behind the Book is a reader-supported publication. Ultimately, Chihiro stays incorruptible to capitalist greed, not because of her lack of greed, but rather because she has a greater purpose. Do you create crises for everyone in your wake, wail at the clock and shake your fist at the heavens because theres never enough time to do everything? The movie shares a solid and interesting message about capitalism and hustle culture, as Emily is stuck in an endless cycle of needing to work in order to make money but being unable to keep her . It seems like everyone has a hustle nowadays. Each of them, with a following of tens of thousands of people, thus illustrates a myth of merit, talent, and opportunity that is anchored solely to the individual, and not the system creating a heres what I learned narrative that simultaneously upholds their struggles while making people feel like others could be doing much more. The words you use can make you feel less pressured and more in charge of your life instead of at the mercy of itcould instead of should or want to or choose to instead of must or have to: I can do my best to win that contract or Im choosing how I want to handle that challenge. You value great worknot simply doing a task to complete it or to produce a product but being in the process as you go through to completion. But maybe the answer lies in our ability to reclaim what it means to rest. Theres nothing wrong with finding purpose in work, but there is something wrong with expecting people to become their work and devote their entire lives to it. you get the idea. After all, hustle culture inadvertently breeds competition amongst coworkers. My favorite thing about the mattress topper is that its so much cheaper than a full size mattress and can be transported much more easily. The need to hustle and grind can also be seen in political spaces, where people such as former first lady Michelle Obama have acknowledged and advanced that Black people need to work twice as good to get half as far.. Studies also show that a slower and calmer approach to job tasks results in more productivity, a higher quality product, and greater success in the long run. And while some are calling for an end to productivity culture during the pandemic, it's not that simple for low-wage workers, who often don't have paid time off or the option to work from home to pay the bills. Take some time. The powerful impact of one word on your mental health. It's really no wonder so many of us struggle to let go of hustle culture, even once we're aware of its toxicity, given its deep-seated roots: here in the UK, the Thatcherite idea that there's "no such thing" as society has engendered the myth of meritocracy. Your opinion ? But we absolutely have the right to take pride in our survival, and what weve done to survive. What Should I Do?. And collective care - and collective action - are the only ways in which we can ensure that. Your hustle is harming you and others. The hustle being denigrated today got us the cable television that brought our favorite music videos to our homes, the dresses we wore to prom, the few presents under our Christmas tree. And youre able to relax into that sweet spot where youre mindfully aware in each moment. Originally uploaded to Flickr by Rijans007. But that's the thing with hustle culture, it is just capitalism re-branded the ultimate goal is still to make as much money as you can with alternative means outside of a 9-5 job, despite . The difficultand more rewardingpart is to find that place inside where youre drawn. On top of this, the layer of racism and social inequality being displayed is appalling and needs to be made aware. They should recall, however, that the 40-hour week was a hard-won concession, a victory for humanity over the barbaric 19th-century work conditions and relentless hours of early industrial capitalism. Even two. It tells us that our humanity is measured, not in how we care for each other, but in the belongings that our hustle can accumulate. This framing of hustle would "explicitly exalt the daily rise-and-grind mentality black menneed to possess in order to survive and thrive," Spence notes in his book. Hustling, however, is not the way out. Admit it. Spirited Away also shows just how seductive hustle culture can be. Capitalism is the economic system at play here in the United States and numerous other countries. Are Some Women Who Date Older Men Seeking a Father Figure? In sum, capitalism consists of five essentials: Get the help you need from a therapist near youa FREE service from Psychology Today. Men have long been silent and stoic about their inner lives, but theres every reason for them to open up emotionallyand their partners are helping. According to Merriam Webster, capitalism is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.. If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you could be a member of the hustle culture. Its easy to get into the habit of endless workdays and late nights in front of the computer when for one, theres no real routine, office sign in or commute when you are working/studying from home, but also when the world around you seems to romanticize and praise constant grinding, doing as many jobs as possible to get by creating what we know now as hustle culture. I came out of the womb a new cog in the capitalist machine, ready to work and work and work up until the day I died. Its not that I am a workaholic, I just f**king love the grind.. Hustle culture has been around for a while, some could even argue since mainstream and modern capitalism have come into the picture, but it has unarguably been heightened during this pandemic. We install nap experiences.. Yes, we must care for ourselves in a world that tells us that it is wrong to do so. Along the way, as sections of The New York Times accumulated on the floor, piles of paper for which trees had given their last twig, I was seized, along with my pleasurable wonderment, by a growing conviction. Why TGIF when you can #ThankGodItsMonday? Despite this history behind the term, the idea of hustling became appealing to many people, including those from Black communities. We should not be pressured into monetizing all aspects of our lives, running our hobbies and passions to the ground to become robotic soulless workers. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hustle comes from the Dutch word "husselen," meaning "to shake or toss." Capitalism teaches us to base our worth off of our productivity and leads us to believe that not sleeping in the name of hustling is a worthy cause. Furthermore, a dissertation paper suggests that the hustle ethic presents itself differently among races, gender, and economic classes. It is also time we address the toxicity behind modern hustle culture, capitalism, and the grind in relation to mental health. permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com. I have seen Black members of my community aunts who work in long-term care homes, friends who work in grocery stores and even my own father who owns a mechanic shop work through this global health crisis. Emptiness is what people feel. I want people to remember this is not because we should actually hate ourselves but because circumstances around us have changed. When youre drawn, youre master instead of a slave to your daily life. 44 percent of American workers earn low wages, a median annual pay of only $17,950. Whether that be due to the stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, election tension, racial trauma, unemployment, or even just trying to stay sane while seeing the world fall apart in front of you, simply making it through in one piece is enough. The hustle culture we see today is based on capitalism a culture that values profit over human life. The hustle being denigrated today put food on our tables when our parents paychecks were short. The desire to find solutions to systemic exploitation that begin and end with how that exploitation impacts us as individuals will allow those systems to continue to exploit those who do not have the privilege of such autonomy unchecked - with the added bonus of blaming those trapped within those systems of exploitation for not embarking on their own personal revolutions themselves. Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com. If youve fallen prey to the hustle culture, you have bought into the idea that its cool to be always-on and to push yourself to the max each of the 1,440 minutes of the day. But the individualism that tells us that societal revolution lies in our own individual bettering alone - even if it is our emotional or spiritual bettering - is also a product of capitalism. Money becomes God. This was a place where, as Arif Hasan, a historian and architect, put it: You could find crafts and trades that have been wiped out elsewhere. A 1914 job ad from The Chicago Defender, an African American newspaper, said delivering the paper was an "easy task" for "any wide-awake boy with a little hustle in him." America's hustle culture is predicated on its embrace of human capital, according to Spence. Photo via Wikipedia. And Im here for it. We believe rest is a form of resistance and reparations. May you find that place within yourself where daily actions and peace of mind coexistwhere you have more idle moments to chill without imperatives, nothing to rush to, fix, or accomplish. Three pieces stayed with me: Erin Griffiths vivid journey into #ThankGodItsMonday workaholic culture; Derek M. Normans elegiac lament for the demise of the Half King, killed by soaring rents beside the High Line on Manhattans West Side, that monument to gentrification; and Meher Ahmads fascinating dispatch on the bulldozing of Karachi. For Lin, freedom and a life outside of work will always remain a dream, a wish that keeps her going. As you frantically and mindlessly toil on a projectconcerned the boss wont like the finished product or that you wont meet the deadlineyoure out of your present mind, stuck in future worries or past regrets. The fact that so many of us have had to hustle to survive sucks. But it has also created the fast fashion industry in which thousands were killed due to tragedies such as the Rana Plaza catastrophe and beyond. Unfortunately, then, what is peddled as practical advice is anything but especially given how unsustainable hustle culture is, and the power structures it upholds. The thought of having to go above and beyond with everything just to stay afloat seems exhausting. The myth of being able to hustle to overcome challenging circumstances "fits the common desires we all have for some degree of control over our circumstances," Lester K. Spence writes in his book, Knocking The Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. Franklin's common sense musings on work, money, and thrift all resonate with us today because they embody an . ", Around the same time, hustle also referred to illegal activities sex work, stealing and common scams. , Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:00 AM Last update on: Thu Jan 13, 2022 04:05 PM, . . , . There's Lingua Franca, a clothing company that sells sweaters with EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN or ORIGINAL GANGSTA embroidered on them for hundreds of dollars. The lure of gold encourages a competitive environment among the bathhouse workers, as they pour over each other in an attempt to please a customer called No Face, who rewards them by showering them in gold coins. Hustle is just one of many buzzwords in a culture obsessed with optimizing, grinding, and life-hacking. Youre attuned to yourself and your surroundings in a calm, nonjudgmental way and focus on whats happening right now. The bathhouse feeds off of the exhaustion and overworking of its employees. Are Children With Angelman Syndrome Really Happy? 21 years later, Ive finally begun to unlearn this unhealthy mindset. The same people often propose the hypothetical scenario of either taking $500,000 or having a dinner with Jay-Z, Elon Musk (take your pick), choosing the latter for his knowledge and how that could make you a millionaire in the long run. Burnout becomes the norm. DoorDash, a food delivery service, claims, "As a dasher, you can be your own boss." All Part time workers will train better each other overtime, and become smarter. No vacations. It didn't mean black people were buying into the racist idea that they weren't working hard enoughbut that some held onto hope that by "working twice as hard" they might be able to get by, or even in some cases get ahead. It does not promote healthy work boundaries. So, what do I think of the rest revolution?. So if all of the above is true - and it is - why is this essay titled as such? How can we garner capital and profits in order to make it to the top of the system and achieve acceptance from our peers? And that revolution means that we still have work to do, especially those of us who have more privilege in society. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com. And you become stronger, calmer, and more self-assured. Perhaps non-stop hustling makes you feel important. She has to prove her worth by working. is a series in which The Swaddle team indulges your pity party with advice you'll probably ignore. Since I got to college, Ive been taking my self care way more seriously. Im so excited to share their incredibly comfortable mattress topper with you guys thats helped me sleep better than I ever have in my 21 years of existence. Getting Behind the Shield: Responding to First Responders, Airport Therapy Dogs Ease the Stress of Travel, Why We Kill, According to Motivational Science, Choosing Between a PhD and PsyD: Some Factors to Consider, 18 Questions to Ask Before Getting Married, The Surprising Risks of Sleeping Too Much, Sexism and Misogyny: Unpacking Patriarchy and Its Handmaids. The opinions expressed in this article are the writers own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus. You are giving your brain a moment to download new information. But it is also a double-edged sword. He also brought up how their paychecks make it worth the work. The current social definition of hustle for many is to work harder, longer and more intensely in order to make more money all while rarely feeling satisfied. There is a real revolution needed before rest can truly be one. Time and time again our governments have failed us and as long as we live in a world of capitalistic society, governments and systems will continue to fail us. In short, he concluded, "colored men have themselves oftenest to blame." Thanks so much to TempurPedic for sponsoring this blog post! Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. If Jay Gatsby were alive in 2019, perhaps F. Scott Fitzgerald would have him scaling social classes with a series of side-hustles and a start-up. Instead of glorifying a healthy happy life, it [is] all about work hard and party hard, which is not a realistic approach for personal or professional success and satisfaction, explained Dr. Syeda Ruksheda, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist from Mumbai. Stop when you are done. Griffith quoted a tweet from Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla: Nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week. His workweek suggestion: about 80 sustained, peaking about 100 at times., Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm, was a co-owner of the Half King, a popular New York hangout for writers and photographers. Work is Chihiro's way to escape from the bathhouse and save her parents. New findings could change how our brain processes fear. I think the emptiness produced by watching a rigged globalized system deliver homogenization on a massive scale one way to think, one way to work, one way to conceive of profit, one way to impose a brand, one way to (not) drink at lunch, one way to eat at your desk, one way to be healthy, one way to deliver a gentrified urban neighborhood has been underestimated as a source of disruptive fury. You can find her on Instagram @devruparakshit. And to a great extent, thats what makes their accounts appealing and their advice, indispensable to followers who seek to replicate their success stories. Soon after, newspaper articles were published that would associate blackness with a lack of hustle, and laziness. In this kind of world, being well rested is a rebellion against hustle culture. Hustling, however, is not the way out. Practice Improves the Potential for Future Plasticity, Neuroscientists Discover How to Keep Us From Freaking Out, The Danger of Self-Protection in Relationships. Tempur-Pedic gifted me a mattress topper that has changed my life. It has also led torandom, non-trained influencers offering therapyand advice on mental health issues online to their followers amid the globalmental health crisis, which followed the pandemic. Though she remains clear-headed throughout most of the movie and does not fall into the trap of money and greed unlike many of her colleagues, it is only when Chihiro is able to let go of her job and find an alternative, spiritual fulfilment that she is able to leave. You have a lot on your plate, and you stand out from the masses because you're superhuman and can do it all. But with my mattress topper, Im somehow in literal heaven. Youre an overachiever and workaholic who refuses to accept that they need to do less. Hustle culture turns this brutal exploitation into an ideal. At the heart of homogenization lies emptiness. The founders of Unhustled and Unhustle (completely separate companies) decry the long work hours at their former finance and digital-marketing jobs, respectively. Sara Kabir is a dreamer, a Literature major, and a writer. To order copies of The desire to find solutions to systemic exploitation that begin and end with how that exploitation impacts us as individuals will allow those systems to continue to exploit those who do not have the privilege of such autonomy unchecked - with the added bonus of blaming those trapped within those systems of exploitation for not embarking on their own personal revolutions themselves.

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hustle culture and capitalism

hustle culture and capitalism

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