There are 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, 730 hours a month, and 8,760 hours a year.
How we spend those hours is completely up to us. Yet, many of us are constantly feeling pressured to spend our time a certain way, that we have to be productive all the time, 24/7. Many of us fall prey to the hustle culture.
Hustle culture is the constant productivity mindset, often depicted in the media, our social circle, and society.
Whether it’s YouTubers’ productive routine in their vlogs, seeing new job notifications from your LinkedIn friends, or hearing about your peers’ fourth internship — they all feed into this deceiving-looking monster that is hustle culture.
Don’t get me wrong, hustle culture and productivity are good things and should be talked about and celebrated, but when it becomes overly glorified and worshipped, it turns into this all-consuming and stress-inducing demon shadow and guilt that looms over our minds. It becomes toxic.
We are all victims at one point or another.
We are constantly pressured to do our very best all the time, work and be productive every second of every day and get numerous internship experience before graduating in order to be successful. Any time we are not directly being productive, we spend those times feeling guilty that we should be working on something.
The hustle culture became even more uncontrollable when the pandemic hit.
Most of us now are staying at home all day and every day, working and studying in the same place where we relax and sleep. The boundary becomes blurry.
Before the pandemic, the productivity period is easier to end as we tend to separate our work and school lives from our personal lives. We study at the library or work at the office and when we come home, it’s usually easier to switch off our productivity side and turn on our well-deserved relaxation mode. However, with every duty happening in the same apartment or house, we often feel obligated to keep on being productive even after hours. And in the long run, it can burn us out and negatively affect our mental health.
With everything being remote, it’s fair to think that we have more time on our hands and that we can work on more things. However, the truth is, we can only do so much.
At the beginning of the fall semester, I was optimistic that I would be able to work to my fullest potential and take advantage of the time I have on hand. I decided to take on two virtual internships on top of my part-time job, full-time coursework load, and my other responsibilities with school organizations, thinking I could do it all with everything being online.
That was a very bad idea.
I was constantly working, weekday and weekend, night and day. There was so much to do, I was running a marathon with no finish line. I was having mental breakdowns almost every other day. I had no break.
I refused to quit anything because I was obsessed with the idea of having more achievements and experiences on my resume. Obsessed with the idea of “guaranteeing” my competitiveness in the future job market.
Finally, I broke. I realized I couldn’t do it, not for long. Even if I did finish through with everything, I would’ve suffered. Ultimately, that’s just not worth it. I made the decision to quit one of my internships and I’m glad I did. Even though I’m still busy with everything, I finally had moments to breathe and enjoy life.
Yes, internships and experiences are important, but learn to know when to press pause and slow down. Yes, productivity is good, but without rest, productivity means nothing and won’t take you anywhere long term.
What college and productivity YouTubers show you online doesn’t reflect the whole truth. The content they share is edited and there is so much behind-the-scenes that you DIDN’T see. Even the most productive people struggle too.
There are days where they aren’t motivated and just want to lie in bed and rewatch Gilmore Girls for the seventh time. There are days where they couldn’t even check off one thing off their to-do list. You just don’t see those days. Everybody is human. It’s great to be productive and achieve things, but it’s also important to care for yourself and give yourself a break in between.
These are rough times. We are all struggling, but know that we’re all in this together. Take everything in one day at a time.