R.I.P., Hustle Culture
It’s time to nest down.
I can’t hustle anymore.
I’ve tried. Some days I think I can return to my pre-pandemic level of productivity. It lasts for about a day.
After that, I need Odinsleep.
I’ve got friends who hustle. I zoomed with one last week. She’s working on all kinds of projects. Just talking to her made me want a nap. She doesn’t have any kids. She’s had a very different pandemic.
I’ve been thinking about the before times. If there’s one word to sum up our lives over the last ten years, it’s this one:
Hustle.
We worshiped this word, even if we hated it. Despite our lost decade, we were going to work so hard and make so much money.
We were going to find our dream job, or forge it from the molten steel of side gigs. We were going to accept ourselves, fall in love, and embrace minimalism. We would live nowhere, and everywhere. The word evolved its own meaning, a way of fixing everything broken in our lives. We were going to replace everything taken from us by hustling.
We couldn’t wait to be digital nomads. If we knew we’d never get to retire, at least we could work poolside.
