This Is How Hustle Is Killing Your Mental Health

Hustle is like harassing yourself to get to your goal

Are you a hustler? Ask the self-proclaimed motivational speakers on social media.

The moment you hear that loud voice from this Social Media your reply will be either of these two

“ Yes Iam and I will kill it “

Or

“No Iam not and Iam never going to make it “

Well, Mine was the first one.

Since 2019 I have been an active member of this community “ The Hustlers “ as that is where all the cool people hang out.

And being a hustler my job was to make the most of every minute. And I took pride that I was among the very few who optimize every hour of their life to get closer to their ultimate goal.

And that phase lasted for almost three years until and up to 15th Jan 2022 When I had an epiphany.

The day when I got a call from my school friend to whom I had not talked for years.

That small conversation hit me hard so hard.

And I realize that I have wasted three good years of my life hustling with nothing to show for it.

The conversation was normal but the Impact wasn’t

He said “ Wow You must Be so happy after three years of consistent effort “ Finally your Hard work Paid off Avi”

The Harsh Reality: “ It didn’t “ I accomplished nothing that I wanted”

Instead, I was Mentally and Exhausted “

Now the Realisation: I was Super Naive.

I tried so hard to stay productive that I end up being a sucker at Productivity.

The Productivity Mumbo -Jumbo

Earlier The word Productivity referred to the effectiveness of Productive effort which means the ability to do the quality work in less time.

Yet, nowadays it has lost its meaning because of the rudimentary people who have redefined it.

Now Productivity only means doing more and more in less time, Quality has nothing to with it.

And this is so dangerous that many of us feel like complete suckers if we do not match this criterion.

Let me tell give you a recent example, During a pandemic when the entire world was struggling.

The Mass media was putting motivational pressure on the people, ignoring the fact that they were already traumatized

The message was like this “ You are not trying hard enough”

It was Screaming loud

This is not the first time Media has been going beyond the limit to paint an unrealistic picture but in such times it’s unkind and unfair.

You can not say a father is not productive enough to put food on the table whilst saving his job, you can say a mother is not motivated enough to manage work from home and her kids, you can not say if you have not developed any new skill to prevent being laid off means you are lazy.

And it’s so destructive that Dr. Alaa Hijazi, a trauma-focused clinical psychologist, had to raise her bold voice to speak out against this new wave of motivating pressure. As she stated in her social media comment:

“I thought I was spared the horrid “motivational” phrase going around now “If you don’t come out of this with a new skill, you never lacked time, you lacked discipline” until I saw it on my local yoga studio page.

“As a trauma psychologist, I am utterly horrified, enraged, and bewildered about how people can believe and spread this phrase in good conscience.

We are going through a collective trauma, that is bringing up profound grief, loss, panic over livelihoods, panic over the loss of lives of loved ones. People’s nervous systems are barely coping with the sense of threat and vigilance for safety or alternating with feeling numb and frozen and shutting down in response to it all.

People are trying to survive poverty, fear, retriggering of trauma, retriggering of other mental health difficulties. Yet, someone has the nerve to accuse someone of lack of discipline for not learning a new skill, and by a yoga teacher!

This cultural obsession with [capitalistic] “productivity” and always spending time in a “productive” “fruitful” way is maddening.

What we need is more self-compassion, more gentle acceptance of all the difficult emotions coming up for us now, more focus on gentle ways to soothe ourselves and our pain and the pain of loved ones around us, not a whipping by some random fucker making us feel worse about ourselves in the name of “motivation”

Note just her many people are outrageous and spoke about it. The hustle culture is driving people crazy, it gives a false message that being super active is the only way to do things.

No, that is a sure way to burn out.

Instead, we need more compassion towards each other, everyone has their own pace to do things, that is why we are unique individuals, not an AI manufactured human Robot, having the same mechanism and features.

Take Away

Stop beating yourself up Champ!

Give your best effort without hoping for a “ Hustlers Report card” to confirm your effort.

Get up and cancel your subscription from this “Dumb Group “

I know Iam no authority to say that but being a hustler earlier in my life I can say that it’s not worth it. I know the feeling of exhaustion and the worst part of it, you came out F*** up. You may think it’s going to make you successful faster but No it won’t. It never will.

“Slow is the fastest easy to get where you want”- Andre de Shields

So go slow, take a movement of breath, stop! Have a self-reflection. Get up and then keep going.

Keep going unless you are not done.