We’ve all heard it before – work hard, play hard, and if you can’t do that: fake it till you make it. It comes from a good place. Stay motivated and push yourself, and eventually the hard work will pay off! But what happens when you don’t really want to do this thing? What happens when you don’t really love your job? Or even worse, what happens when your job ends up killing you?
What is hustle culture?
I asked a couple of friends this question. Their answers ranged from “a type of culture that does not care about the time and energy it takes to reach goals” to “monetizing your free time until nothing brings you joy anymore”. When I asked Google, I was rewarded with a photo of burned matches side-by-side, each in worse shape than the one before it.
Simply put, hustle culture means the work comes before all else. Whether this be your full-time career or a side-hobby that’s taken on a life of its own, all things that do not traditionally progress this work is not as important. Those who have seen the dark side of hustle culture know how accurate that match photo is.
I’ve finally seen the dark side myself. In the last year, I spent two school terms teaching English in South Korea. For a lot of reasons all related to the specific job and not the country, I left before completing my year. That job was all work and no play, hustle culture at its finest.
It was the first time I ever SAW the generation-gap between my parents and I. They grew up learning that paying dues meant the dismissal of their mental health; no one got to have both. It was more important to stick it out.
My generation (Millenials) forward are still willing to pay our dues, just not at the price of our mental health. Mental health, self-care, and emotional awareness continue to become more and more important to later generations.
What makes self-care so difficult?
There are a few reasons for this.
1) The term “self-care” and “self-love” are used interchangeably.
Self-care is defined as ‘the practice of taking an active role in protecting one’s own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress’.
Self-love is defined as ‘regard for one’s own well-being and happiness‘.
The reason society frequently confuses them is obvious. They are synonyms; however, they are not the same.
Self-love is the /feelings/ towards oneself. The way we teach kindness, patience, and forgiveness with others, self-love demands we allow ourselves the same grace. It takes much mindfulness and is an ever-growing process. It is something to practice, to progress at, rather than have a one-and-done action.
Self-care is the actions one takes to help spark joy. It is something we repeat, creating a routine of actions that help us fend off stress, negative thoughts, and physical weariness. These actions we repeat can result in or make easier the feelings of self-love, but they are not in themselves those feelings.
To achieve a balanced, happy life, self-care and self-love must work together.
2) Self-care is unique to the individual.
You might be seeking ideas for self-care on the internet. Compiling a list of self-care ideas will only work if they’re what spark joy for you, not just for someone else. Taking care of oneself is what makes it self-care.
For instance, the aesthetic of a warm bath filled with flower petals and fizzy bath bombs, with candles hanging along the rim to set the mood with scents floating across the pages of a book as it sits atop the bath tray… it does nothing for me. I still hate bathing.
As a whole, I get exactly 0% pleasure from washing myself. Hopefully, I will one day learn to enjoy this process because I did all these things to my bathtub–because it really sucks having to do something I hate each and every day.
That’s an example of my self-care. I know I must bathe. I know I have to do it even if I hate it. I know there’s no reason to hate something I have no choice in doing. So, I try desperately to find a way to (at the very least) balance out my hatred of the action. It is a success if I am able to enjoy even one aspect of it.
I get essentially two reactions from everyone when they find out that I don’t enjoy bathing: the first is “Sucks for you.” The second is “You’re weird.” There are some people who /love/ bathing. They needn’t do the rest, but might for the sake of compounding their joy. Self-care would also include that.
How to make self-care easier
Because self-care is unique, write a list of things you enjoy. I know I love bookshops, the rain, ambient audios on YouTube, hot tea, dogs (as a whole), cats (on my lap), cosiness, yoga, and feeling put together.
In designing my days, I will include as much from my list as I can. Tapping into the things I already know I love allows me to add these actions naturally into my day and, by extension, my routine. They become more than just a passing comfort.
Don’t try too hard
What are some things you love? What gives you that warm feeling when you think about it?
If you can’t remember, don’t stress! The point of all of this is to get rid of stress. Don’t add it trying to figure this out.
Take note of the things you pay attention to throughout the day. If you’re driving to work and your eyes notice a doggie sticking its head out of its window, does a smile appear on your face? Do you watch it for the entire length of a stoplight, or do you wave at it and go about your business? Do you even notice? Maybe you should set up work next to a dog park so you can watch them play.
What about the smell of a new book? Can you stop yourself from taking a deep breath of printed paper whenever you enter a bookstore. Do you stick your nose into the pages, or do you flip the pages back-and-forth just so you can feel them slip past your fingers? Maybe this means you should try to read more physical books rather than listening to them on Audible.
It is easier to love yourself when you are aware of what you naturally resonate with. Because self-care is a series of small tasks that add up over time to produce big results, you can add up your simple pleasures together to help you achieve self-love. You will be able to find peace by indulging in the small pleasures of life, as well as by taking care of yourself. You will be able to love yourself if you accept who you are without judgment, find joy in the little things, and prioritize self-care.
Slow down. Don’t burn out.
It is difficult to juggle all these extra obligations with the rest of your life when you are employed, especially if you are working full-time. A hustle culture can become dangerous when we believe that work comes before everything else, including our own health.
Thankfully, our newest generations have evolved past this concept. We no longer accept that our health must come second. Hustle culture has found a new home in the hobby space, especially online, and it will take just as much determination to cut it out of there, too.
I don’t mean that you should give up your hobbies. That’s not what I’m saying. However, we must remember that we cannot produce living projects if we’ve died while building them.
Employment is another matter, however. We cannot underestimate the time and effort required to successfully maintain full-time employment while also taking care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It is important to note here that many people are also expected to be able to juggle children or other family obligations in addition to their careers.
It takes a certain level of self-awareness, strength, and fortitude to make it through each day when one is working full-time without becoming completely depleted by fatigue.
This is the precise reason I appreciate romanticizing life. It is a branch of intentional living that requires us to give equal attention to the little things as the big things. And it is insanely hard to do when you’re drowning in hustle culture.
I dropped the ball when I was teaching. And, by extension, my entire internal identity (that was once composed of joy, intention, inspiration, and curiosity) all but shut down. My adulting abilities broke apart and rest evaporated entirely.
The capability to romanticize and participate in self-care was impossible when I was running on fumes. If you’re buried, slow down. Take the break you swear you don’t have time for. That’s when you need it most. Ask someone where they find joy. (If you have kids, ask them. Especially if they’re small, you’ll be surprised where they find it.) You can try to see the world through this other person’s eyes. It’ll help ground your feeling of getting tossed about in a tornado.
Bottom line, do not let yourself burn out. Find something small to focus on; it’ll help to freeze the spin-out. From there, you can slowly add joy back into your life through little things.
For me, I start by exploring my writing again. This post isn’t perfect–it doesn’t flow quite right and there are typos–but that’s okay because this is something simple and easy for me to do. The joy from doing this piece of writing goes a long way towards making me feel like myself again, even if just for now.
