LIVING TO WORK, WORKING TO LIVE
I am tired of my dream job, I am tired of labour. Trying to understand hustle culture as a young millenial. What is the price of survival?
Before I begin this article, I want to propose a world where we start asking more questions, and creating thought exercises where people are guided towards answering the questions for themselves.
Life isn’t as polished as a 5-step process. We write to allow ourselves do the hard work of thinking, dreaming, and drawing our own conclusions based on our own experiences and contexts. Sometimes we should also create space for our readers to do the same.
For that reason, today I’m going to throw out a couple of questions, throw out my reasoning, and ask for your own perspectives.
Bear with me.
This article was inspired by my latest mental breakdown and this post by Pete Ross.
I’m stuck between going as hard as possible for the next 5 years to build a life that guarantees my survival and taking double the time to build that life, so that I can maintain some semblance of a work-life balance, for the sake of my mental health.
Today’s overarching question is:
Should your twenties be characterised by transient extreme suffering or measured sustainable suffering?
On YouTube, there’s been an influx of ‘I don’t dream of labour’, ‘I don’t have a dream job’ type posts. Here and there, it feels like everyone is quitting their day jobs to go do something they’ve always really wanted to. For most of the West, it seems like that’s travel among other things. For the sufferers of post-colonialism however, that’s usually limited to simply becoming something more creative, more hands on, or more challenging with greater rewards and a bit more control of their work i.e. entrepreneurship.
The state of the labour market and our extreme version of capitalism has really pushed the need for a ‘side hustle’ and a second job for most people. It isn’t really surprising that after a while, people just choose to do what fulfils them for income. If it’s all suffering, they might as well suffer for something they’re passionate about. In the infant years of this stage, this usually comes with crippling anxiety, uncertainty and a lot of sacrifices.
So what are the two types of suffering I mention in my overarching question?
Transient extreme suffering or TES is the type of suffering that entrepreneurship in its rawest form characterises. Picture days, weeks, months of less-than-ideal sleep, sacrificing whether that be friendships, time with your family, the distractions of shiny toys and a lot of the time, sanity, to build something from the ground up and have it become something that can sustain you and keep you fulfilled.
Measured sustainable suffering or MSS is the type of suffering where you try to have it all. On the scale ‘How much you apply yourself at work’ you dangle between just enough to moderately well. Rolling your eyes deservedly at capitalism, you never let it interfere with other areas of your life. You never really make any major sacrifices; everything is done in moderation. You might still be in the clutches of capitalism, your work may still be seen as a means to an eventual end, but that end may not be anywhere in sight for now and you’re resigned to keep running the race for as long as you need to.
Your immediate priority is living each day to the fullest because ‘hey! we could all die tomorrow right’?
Measured sustainable suffering is the definition of working to live. It is the closest form to ideal humanity we can have in this already messed up world.
Woe betide those who out of circumstance are forced to go through TES but have a respect, maybe even a love for their work like those who actively engage in MSS for the enjoyment of it.
In the name of self-care, especially for a generation that has, I guess, been quite traumatised by mostly abstract things, it’s easy to say MSS is what we should all always strive towards. A sub-question is;
“Is our version of MSS realistic for budding entrepreneurs?”
Being in the building phase of multiple mentally challenging things, I struggle very much with the concept of a work-life balance right now. I am very much isolated and living to work at the moment, often times for little to no remuneration.
But I know my end goal.
I know that I have at most 5 years of this stage of the ‘grind’ to reap the very tangible reward of freedom.
Not even necessarily financial freedom, but mental freedom. That feeling of safety, utility, and endless possibilities, not just for me but for my loved ones too, in an environment that caters to who I am.
Knowing that I am working towards something, and that something requires a LOT of sacrifice and is time sensitive, do people in my position even have a choice in their category of suffering?
Why do I feel so guilty all the time? When I’m working and when I’m not working? What does it all mean?
From the videos I’ve watched on the topic, from Karin Bohn to Jackie Aina all the way to Gary Vee, and from some of the articles I’ve read on Medium, there seems to be a huge emphasis of (in Gary’s words), ‘eating shit’ for a while.
You have to be ready to put in the work, make those endless sacrifices, put in those endless hours for the early years of your twenties if you’re lucky enough to even know what you want your life to look like, to be able to accomplish something worth protecting.
Apparently, people are more likely to look kindly to a young twenty something hungry to learn and grow than they are to a thirty something doing the exact same thing. More opportunities are available to us, we have no real responsibilities, and we are abreast of current trends in the world which makes us valuable assets to companies who need to keep adjusting to constant global changes. 22–28 thereabout is the prime of your life, the foundation on which the rest of your life is built.
Yet, I am still also bombarded by the notion that we have so much time. Harrison Ford was a carpenter at 30, Samuel L Jackson didn’t get his first movie role until he was 46. Why are we working ourselves to the bone now when we literally have the next 40–50 years to participate in capitalism? We should be living slowly and sustainably, taking the time to appreciate and engage with friends and families because at the end of the day it’s human relationships that make life meaningful.
I mean, it is.
But is it really?
The concept of slow living is so appealing. Taking the time for yourself to relax, automating and delegating wherever you can, not rushing through life, not taking every opportunity, not trying to capitalise off everything. It is everything I could ever dream of. People say the grind doesn’t stop so you might as well slow down, heck, I said it recently to a colleague.
But what if the grind truly doesn’t stop because if it does, you’ll die of hunger?
In places like Lagos, Nigeria, I can’t comprehend the idea of the average to even the semi well-off person living slowly. It just seems like you have to kill life before life kills you. I’ve never been to New York, but I can only imagine that for the average person with those ridiculous rent prices, that might also be the case.
Some questions I want to throw out in relation to that:
Do you think slow living is applicable to your environment? Can you thrive with it?
I’m often caught between a rock and a hard place when I think about what it takes to accomplish big dreams and just being content with the impact I’m already making in my local neighbourhood within my immediate context.
As much as I just want to, dare I say, do hood rat shit with my friends every weekend, is that really possible given the current working climate?
I am so tired of hard labour. I’m tired of labour that causes me to get into bed at 9pm and spend 5 hours ruminating because I just can’t turn my brain off. I am constantly trying to connect the dots between things floating around in there. Granted that has given me a lot of great ideas, but it has also given me a chronic headache.
I always think about this scenario; if I go out tomorrow and get hit by a bus, what would I regret? I mean I’d be dead so nothing really but let me even humour this.
When I look back on my life, I’d be happy I came out once in a while to touch base with other humans, I’d be happy that I made an effort to sustain my most meaningful friendships, even the ones that were painfully long distance. I would also be ecstatic that I lived a life that was a testament of me trying to do better for myself, for my family and for humanity. I lived a life where I was striving for much more and thinking long term about fulfilment and purpose.
At least, I tried.
Another question I want to throw out, and I think one of the most important ones to answer.
Does our ambition to live on a non-stop grind come from not knowing what enough is?
One thing opponents of hustle culture don’t particularly account for is that not everybody’s grind is driven by greed or materialism. Success, to both proponents and opponents of hustle culture, seems to be largely qualified financially to the benefit of materialism. However, I think that, in itself, is such a narrow-minded view of what success is to individual people. It’s a view I’ve had to properly rethink over the years.
Minimalism is not the answer.
It is incomprehensible and cripplingly depressing that having parents that can support you financially is seen as a massive privilege. Your parents brought you into this world, their primary responsibility to you is to keep you alive and safe with the adequate tools to navigate this shitshow. Sometimes people have to scramble and build to survive, for their families and for basic access to opportunities that come naturally for others.
I am not having children, but with the rising cost of just education alone, I can only offer prayers and manifestations to my friends who are going to have to go through that alone, possibly multiple times.
Growing up and being flung into adulting — even with my mum who I can absolutely still rely on if all goes to shit — and having to “grind” has really taught me the value of hard work and sacrifice, especially for a wholesome vision. I don’t know if that’s something to be completely demonised anymore. It’s not entirely healthy but the world isn’t fair either.
To achieve anything, the groundwork must be done. In the moment, it may be back breaking and heart wrenching, and you may be following the patterns of hustle culture, but it is only transient. Transient but necessary. I personally do not want to elongate that suffering for a couple more parties or a little bit more Netflix or FaceTime or travelling or dare I say, sleep? Is that going too far? Probably.
Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life. — Alain de Botton
Thinking back to a conversation I had with my cousin a few years ago, feeling the lovely English August sun on my face, walking off the delicious GBK we just had, casually observing the hustle and bustle of Oxford street — this sentiment goes against everything I’ve ever wanted.
I’ve never wanted to coast through life, but I’ve never wanted to ‘eat shit’ either. Based on trends, it seems that’s what I’ve been doing to be comfortable, that’s what my parents had to do for me to even get to this point.
When you hear the route most of your parents took to get to where they are today, where you can afford to chill out from time to time, you gain a newfound respect. I certainly did when I spoke to my mum about her twenties. She didn’t have a dream job or a list of goals, but my dad did. What she had, compared to the people around her, was a privileged childhood. But that didn’t stop her from cultivating a ridiculous work ethic when life got tough because it almost certainly will, and nobody can prepare you for it really.
After a failed attempt to even begin the process of emigrating to Australia, they started a business. When they had to transition from depending on other people for a salary to having loads of people depend on them, to having futures being moulded by the result of their labour, it became back-breaking work.
Now, it is the only reason I can sit here with enough knowledge and exposure to take the work they’ve done, with my brother and I’s own back-breaking labour, to a different realm of possibilities. Just so that I can give my siblings the same life we had despite our current contexts. That just goes to show that the groundwork must be done FIRST.
You guys, I’m not sure I believe in a work-life balance right now honestly. I stop when I can physically and mentally do no more. It’s definitely not healthy, but if I go any slower, I will lose my window of opportunity and lose my sanity in the process. I’m thinking long-term and for that the ‘hustle’ starts now.
How do you feel about all this? I’m just a random twenty something stumbling forward hopefully towards a more stable future. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the situation. Did you at any point have to partake in TES? And what does life look like for you now?
Feel free to email me at c.eniamogu@gmail.com or reply to any part of this post!
I shall now leave you with two videos. I would advise that you form your own thoughts first before watching them, and see how your thoughts compare. They are quite interesting.
First, this fascinating video from the School of Life.
Second, this video from Adella Afadi that encapsulates a lot about how I feel about MSS and TES.
This piece is in the category “Navigating the world of work.” Click on the link to read similar posts.
My Medium is divided into six categories which you can read quick summaries of here.
