24 Hours a Day, No Time to Smell the Roses

Written by Alexandra Kim

Graphics by Ella Swenson

There are two types of people in this world: the tortoises and the hares. Now, the story behind their race is one that has been passed down through a hefty collection of generations, and it is known that (spoiler alert) the tortoise comes out on top. The tortoise becomes the unlikely hero of the fable, and the almighty hare is knocked down a peg or two…. or mayhaps knocked off his high horse. Despite this triumphant victory being such widespread knowledge, many people in the modern world have neglected the morale of the story. Many people in the modern world become the hare of their pursuits, and oftentimes, it does more harm than good.

One thing the modern reality holds that Aesop’s fantasyland does not is the world of hustle culture. The perpetual state of doing, of working, of grinding because that is the only method of pursuit that hustle culture has come to know and love. To be a part of the culture is to infiltrate work into every single waking moment. Self-help books and motivational gurus teach everyone that life on Earth is just a lifelong race against time until one average person convinces another average person that a wink of sleep and a lifetime supply of work that is there just for the sake of being there is enough to separate one from another. The tireless grind is not exclusive to micro-influencers and Wall Street. Hustle culture has found its way into every nook and crevice of the modern world.

I, myself, have fallen into the hustle life in the past. This culture is something I’ve come to know all my life. Accelerated courses from the age of 9, late nights on campus from the age of 14, all with the impending doom known as college admissions looming over my head from as young as age 11. When it came to schooling, work, and future planning, all I knew was how to move. I never learned how to stop or rest. In fact, I learned that stopping at any point (or even slowing down) not only takes away the worth of my previous endeavors, but also chips away at my very self-worth. This desire to keep going has left me perpetually burnt out, especially because what once was extraordinary work can become extremely ordinary at a single flip of the switch. We see this decline in young people all over the country in the most recent set of college admission decisions. 2022 has grown to become an extremely brutal year for college admissions, and a part of this brutality is the hurt and despair brought upon rejection. This rejection transcends beyond not getting what one wants; in the name of college decisions and with the impacts of hustle culture, this rejection now holds the power to gnaw at the person’s self-esteem and worth. Every drop of blood, sweat, and tears shed, every hour of sleep lost in exchange for an extra hour to grind, every meal skipped for time's sake was thrown into a product that ended up being rejected. 

A part of what defines hustle culture is the ability to make sacrifices, bold sacrifices that should be worth it in the end so long as it advances one’s career or work endeavors. However, the limits surrounding these choices have been pushed further and further, reaching the point where the negligence of self-care has become normalized and even praised. These sentiments range far and wide, from the jokes about downing 8 cups of coffee before the first meal at 4pm to “heartwarming” news articles about peers having to donate their sick days at work to a coworker in an emergency situation. There is nothing quirky or silly about working one’s body to its absolute physical limits. There is nothing heartwarming about a work culture that does not attend to its worker’s dire needs. There is nothing admirable about a work culture that needs their gaps to be filled by the laborers themselves, and unless hustle culture and grit ideology are de-platformed once and for all, then the world will stay in a vicious cycle that will leave people craving more.

On the flip side, those that decide to choose livelihood over work, wellbeing over all else, are often deemed lazy, and in a world where rest has become so demonized, laziness has grown to become one of the most shameful traits in society. Laziness has become shamed so much that being in tune with one's needs and boundaries can be seen as a bolder "sacrifice" than succumbing to the ever-growing mountain of work demands. It takes true courage to take your life back after having it taken away from you by the strains of hustle culture and to seek joyful fulfillment instead of seeking productivity for the sake of being productive. Deriving from the word “produce,” this highly desired trait is coated in blatantly capitalistic rhetoric of not just producing content, capital, or material, but producing a copious amount of it in the name of eternal growth. Any task has become some sort of transaction with the objects involved serving as mere products. There is an underrated boldness to seeking the joy in creating and in working once more, to rediscover a true purpose that transcends doing things for the sake of doing things.

Let us look back at the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise ends up winning a slow and steady race, but even if it had lost, at least they were able to smell the roses along the way, to enjoy the path that was being taken. Once again, there are two types of people in this world. On one hand, we have the hares, racing against time, banking on speed and haste before reaching a state of slumber on the flower bed. On the other hand, we have the tortoises who take a slow and steady place but make the time and space to smell the roses along the way, to enjoy the path that was being taken.