Business man sitting in the air cross-legged with multiple arms coming out doing many different things.Photo byMarko Aliaksandr via Shutterstock

Go to work, come home, and work on side hustles for the next three hours. Work all weekend building your side business. Never stop growing, improving, and hustling. It’s the only way to get ahead; if you aren’t doing it, you’re wrong.

This is hustle culture.

And it’s destroying our lives.

What is Hustle Culture?

Hustle culture is the idea that you must constantly work beyond your normal job. You should have a side hustle or six.

All the extra money needs to go into investments or new businesses. You need to be active on every social media platform in existence, selling your products and services, networking with folks who can help you, and building your brand.

Hustle culture is the insidious belief that if you aren’t working 24/7, you don’t deserve to be happy or be wealthy. Some even take it so far as to say you don’t deserve to support yourself if you aren’t constantly hustling.

Why is Hustle Culture Toxic?

Hustle culture is a dangerous blend of ableism, misogyny, and unfettered capitalism. It’s the message that everyone must constantly work to succeed, and it’s incredibly toxic.

Hustle culture doesn’t even acknowledge that some people literally can’t work every minute of the day. Many people cannot work at all, much less work twelve-hour days and weekends without a break.

Hustle culture ignores these people.

It also ignores the people who have other obligations in their lives, such as childcare, elder care, taking care of a home, and all the other thousands of tasks that people (primarily women) have to accomplish while they aren’t at work.

The misogyny and ableism thinly veiled in these messages of “I did it so you can too” is glaringly obvious.

But a second, more insidious reason why hustle culture is so toxic is that it sends the message that this is normal. Hustle culture normalizes the idea that you must spend your entire waking life working to afford life. It normalizes prioritizing work over wellness and building relationships based on getting ahead.

The truth is that it’s not normal.

No human who works forty hours a week should be unable to afford to live. We shouldn’t have to try to monetize our hobbies just for a chance at survival.

Life should be for living, enjoying, experiencing, and engaging. Life isn’t supposed to be one gigantic hustle. Relationships aren’t just about what you can get from the other person.

The idea that the only point of life is to work is disgusting and should be challenged regularly.

I’m a Hustler….and I Hate the Culture

Look. I’m a hustler. I love blogging and gaming and always look for fun new ways to monetize things. Usually, I’m unsuccessful, but it’s a game for me. It’s fun. I enjoy spending my free time writing for the blog and supporting the folks in my discord.

I also do it because I want to quit my job and support myself with these side hustles alone.

Before starting, I knew it would take a few years of arduous work, and I accepted that. I knew I would need to sacrifice some things in the present to get the life that I wanted in the future. That was my choice, and I’m okay with it.

I also understand that not everyone will have the ability or desire to do what I’ve done (or am doing).

I’m incredibly privileged to have a job that pays the bills while working on my passions. It’s given me tons of opportunities beyond my wildest dreams.

Millions of people don’t have that.

I’m also privileged only to have to work 40 hours per week, have a set schedule that I can plan things around, and have a car so that I only have a short commute. Millions of the working poor don’t even have these things.

There are tons of people in similar career fields that don’t hustle. They are happy working forty hours a week. They are perfectly content to work until they’re in their sixties and retire to a life of comfort. Guess what? That’s okay!!

Everyone is different. Everyone has different goals and dreams, and aspirations. Nobody should have to hustle to get by.

Nobody.

Hustle culture sends the message that if you aren’t working your butt off seven days a week, you are to blame for a life of destitution.

How Can We Prevent Hustle Culture?

Hustle Culture is a political issue. People are hustling because they have to.

Wages are stagnant. People can’t afford to live without hustling. They work their primary job, then deliver food after hours just to get by. Then because they toiled so hard to build some semblance of survival this way, they shame others who don’t want to work that much. They also refuse to acknowledge the systematic problems rampant in our society that prevent millions of other people from even trying to hustle this way.

We need to change our entire culture surrounding work in general. Americans have this weird obsession with work. We seem to think that you don't deserve to live if you don’t work.

The idea that automation would create a world where we would have more leisure time is lost on us. We value work for the sake of working.

Of course, a society organized around work as a value system will worship something like hustle culture. It takes the exaltation of work to the next level. We should always be working.

Never stop working and hustling; if you do – well, it’s your fault that you’re poor.

A Cultural Shift

We need a culture shift. Work isn’t something to be worshipped and valued – it’s a means to an end. Work to pay the bills and to get the money to do what you enjoy.

We must also acknowledge and fix the problems that keep people trapped in a cycle of poverty. The outrageous cost of living, including healthcare and childcare, coupled with low wages, is one of the main reasons people are poor – not that they don’t hustle hard enough.

Many people with low incomes in America do work over 40 hours a week, but society doesn’t value their work.

“Get a better job” is often thrown out as a catch-all to blame the victims of low wages so that society doesn’t have to do the hard work of fixing the real problem.

Hustle culture tells these folks that they are trapped in poverty because they didn’t try hard enough, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Avoid Hustle Culture in Your Personal Life

It’s far easier to avoid hustle culture on a personal level than fixing it on a societal level, and if that’s all you can do, it’s a great start. The secret to avoiding hustle culture in your personal life is to live a meaningful life.

No one ever said on their deathbed that they wished they worked more.

Is it any wonder that work isn’t the key to a meaningful life? Instead, do what makes you happy.

Remove yourself from the culture that tells you that you need more and more to be happy because, after a certain point, more money doesn’t equate to more happiness.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with hustling. If you enjoy it, as I do, keep doing it! But stop shaming others for not doing or wanting the same thing. Acknowledge that others can’t do it, and vote to support programs and policies that will make their lives easier without the hustle.

Even if you enjoy the hustle, understanding that not everyone does and that it’s not normal to expect people to hustle just to survive will go a long way toward getting rid of the toxic parts of hustle culture.

Let’s End Hustle Culture

No one should have to work evenings and weekends just to survive. We should stop shaming people for trying to live their lives and promote a healthy work-life balance.

Life is for living, not for hustling, so let’s end this toxic idea that if you aren’t working every second, you deserve to be poor. We can do better.

How To Live the Good Life Now

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This article was produced and syndicated by Partners in Fire.