Selling Success: Why “Hustle Culture” is a Hustle
Anyone selling you their secret to success is really just selling you.
I have come to loathe hustle culture. Everything about it feels like the upshots of American capitalism gone haywire. Especially as a millennial, I’ve been sold the hustle culture as something I should aspire to. Honestly, it’s part of the reason I write on Medium: I was hoping to make some extra money, maybe make a name for myself.
Of course, I read about Medium in a blog post about blogging and how to make money from it. Some blogger or another (or probably several of them) has a blog that tells you how to make money from a blog. At the time, I was interested in making more money from my writing, and Medium seemed like a solid place to start.
I’ve never made a ton of money writing here, but it’s not nothing, and I appreciate the extra income every month. I certainly don’t regret starting here, especially when I realized that my content was more for me and my catharsis than it was for making money. That said, I hate the thing that drove me here: that damned hustle culture.
I have been all over the map when it comes to the hustle. I’ve explored a variety of secondary and tertiary income streams, from blogging to real estate to hoarding nickels. Yes, really. It’s not even that I’m unhappy with my day job — I find it incredibly fulfilling work, and it pays well enough to support my spouse, myself, and four cats. It’s just that everyone is selling me on “more.”
The key word there is “selling.” Self-help is a huge category, and helping yourself get rich is a giant slice of that category. For Americans especially, we are huge fans of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” even though the phrase was initially meant to describe something impossible.
There are many, many books written about financial success. From “The Four-Hour Work Week” to “Rich Dad Poor Dad” to “The Art of the Deal,” people will read obsessively about how to become rich. Countless blogs detail how to do it, and endless articles are published about achieving financial success via the side hustle.
It’s pretty much all hot garbage, honestly. Not everyone is cut out for hustle culture, and not everyone wants to hustle. I don’t. Yes, I love my job, but I work to live, not the other way around. Work is not my one life focus, and I don’t aspire to put in 80 hours a week to hurl myself closer to financial success (and probably an early grave).
The thing that bugs me, though, is that the people selling you success already have theirs, and it’s on your back and the backs of people like you. Every time you buy a book by Tim Ferriss or whatever person is selling you their idea of success, you are just cementing their success even further.
For reference, The Four Hour Work Week has sold over two million copies worldwide. Do you think that every person who bought that book is now a massive success as a result? Or do you think that it’s just two million books’ worth of royalties in Mr. Ferriss’s pockets?
And so it goes for so many success gurus. They found success and will show you how to get it too, for the low, low cost of $29.99 plus your pertinent information. It’s cool, though, you can get the first three chapters of their book at no cost if you sign up for their mailing list. The first hit is free, after all.
It frustrates me that so many people are catapulted to fame and fortune by monetizing their success. Hell, Donald Trump more or less made a career out of selling himself as a massive success at anything he did, despite his many business failings. The man couldn’t make money selling red meat, booze, and sin, but somehow managed to convince enough of the general public that he was such a success that he should be president.
What it boils down to is that the people who are selling you success are just lining their own pockets with your hopes, dreams, and ultimately, failures. They know that, of course; even the ones that really do want people to succeed at whatever they’re selling are aware that most of you will fail, or probably not even try. What matters most is that you buy their books, their seminars, their methods, and their lifestyles. It takes money to make money, right?
Ultimately, most of us aren’t cut out for hustle culture. Ignoring the significant amount of the population that is forced to work multiple jobs to survive, the typical middle-class worker probably doesn’t want to put in the huge effort to potentially get rich off their side hustles. Even for those that are able and willing to do so, many if not most probably won’t succeed, or at least won’t succeed enough to be worth the stress and struggle.
Am I cynical about this? Hell yes. I’ve dumped so much of my life into trying to make extra money, trying to have more, that I now struggle with simply making do with having enough. I can pay all my bills, put money into savings and retirement, and don’t have a ton of debt. I live a fairly charmed life; more would be nice, but it’s not necessary.
Unfortunately, if we’re not hustling, we’re not good people. Work ethic and hustle culture are tied to morality in America, and if you’re not working, you’re obviously a bad person. If you’re not successful, it’s not the system’s fault, it’s your fault. Never mind the systemic inequality that enables the rich to keep their money while ensuring that minorities and the poor stay on the bottom rungs of society. They’re obviously morally bankrupt, otherwise they’d be successful. If and when they decide to become good, decent, hard-working Americans, they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Oops, there’s that phrase again.
I don’t want to bash on those who hustle and those who are successful at it. If you’re happy making six figures working 60 hours a week, that’s great, you do you. Some people are just naturally drawn to working, and that’s fine. I just want to make sure that people realize that it’s not the end-all-be-all of success.
As for me, I’m more or less done with hustling for extra money. I’ve got a few things that I do here and there, but they don’t interfere with my daily life and don’t stress me out. Heck, my rejection of the hustle is what drove me to start this project: I wanted to write for myself. I’ve spent so much time trying to come up with articles that I could pitch to various publications that I haven’t written what I want to write in a long, long time.
Interestingly, since I’ve untethered myself from the hustle, I’m brimming with ideas again. Last night, I wrote down five ideas for things to write about here, and since I can publish whatever I want, I didn’t bother to think about the marketability of those articles. There are no editors to please other than me.
Ultimately, it’s sort of a “do what you love and the money will follow” situation, but a bit different. I’ve come to dislike that phrase, honestly. My father used it on me when I decided to become a writer, and having settled into a field where I make good money, I’m sure he feels like he was proven right. However, it’s a bit capitalistic for me.
Instead, I think we should do what we love regardless of whether we make money on it. Everything is about making money off of your hobbies — ”if you’re good at something, don’t do it for free” is a major tenant of hustle culture. I disagree. We need to do things for fun, not just to make money at it. Fun keeps us sane as humans. It’s okay to work a day job to support your hobbies if those hobbies bring you joy. There is no shame in working to live instead of living to work.
If you’re a hustler, do your hustle thing. But, if you work your job so you can come home and play video games, or build models of cars, or carve spoons, that’s fine too. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, after all. And, if some hustle nut tells you that you should spend all your time making money, you can happily ignore them knowing that you can do what you love without worrying about monetizing it.
If they try to sell you something, though, feel free to put out your “no solicitors” sign, lock your doors, and do what makes you happy. At the end of the day, you have to live with yourself, so why be miserable pushing yourself to hustle when you can be happy on the couch with Animal Crossing?
Speaking of which, my island paradise is calling me.
