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From "inspirational" instagram posts, motivational workout tips and Elon Musk's priestly advice, hustle culture seems to have infiltrated the modern workaholic psyche, and if you're not 'on the grind' 24/7, there must be something very wrong with you. No one disputes the clear links between working hard and success, daring to contradict everyone from Lebron James to the relatives who can't help but berate you with rags-to-riches anecdotes when that grade average dips even slightly. But is this obsession with productivity really advice made for the individual's success?

Hustle culture tells us we need to work harder, stronger and faster. It tells us to make every waking hour about maximum productivity, and that only when you eat, sleep and live your work can you reach your goals. It looks like an obsession with checklists and strict schedules, a finger wagging at distraction and 'slacking', and a glorification of all things efficient. It advertises things like free time and entertainment as "self-care" that you should "treat" yourself to "in small bites" after something like hours of non-stop work, as if you're on some ticking time bomb, and the apocalypse nears every time you relax for whatever reason you deem fit, or for no reason at all.

"It tells us to make every waking hour about maximum productivity, and that only when you eat, sleep and live your work can you reach your goals."

The unassuming consumer sees hustle culture manifest itself as legendary athletes and self-made billionaires, but behind the facade of performative workaholism and unabashed boasting about your 'rise and grind', #hustle lifestyle, it really just looks like 9 to 5 employees glued to their screens at a desk job and thousands of robotic students telling themselves that the only barrier to happiness, success and pleasing their parents - is themselves.

Hard work becomes toxic when the machine tells you that you are defined by your per hour product, and promises riches in exchange for a slow, life-sapping death by determination. In reality, many other factors hold individuals back in a non-meritocratic society. They will only ever romanticise the 1 in every 1000 cases of someone 'making it big', getting into their top choice college, landing a high paying job, or being drafted by a football team, and so if you didn't make it, your work ethic was wrong. You didn't sweat enough, or didn't have the drive for it. In reality, limited to negligible class mobility means those who do make it tend to be rich and privileged enough to pay their way through, have the right skin colour and/or genitals, or just happen to be 'discovered' in the right place at the right time. If working hard was the only ticket to entry into a lifetime of luxury, millions of people wouldn't be stuck for generations in poverty, more women would be presidents, and all the promises of capitalism would be within arms reach. So if hard, energy-sapping, indulgence-denying work can only get you so far, why do we glorify it?

"So if hard, energy-sapping, indulgence-denying work can only get you so far, why do we glorify it? "

The simple answer is that the people who profit off of every second of our labour are, to use a genius analogy I just came up with, feeding us poison by convincing us it's cake. If schools and colleges depend on our belief in the validity of those final grades to collect tuition fees, and businesses need motivated workers to churn out profit margins, why give students and employees the stick when you can offer the carrot of an American Dream-esque success? Our belief and subscription to hustle culture may as well be the only thing keeping the economy going and churning out profit in some industries, so being so powerful, you bet it will be advertised well.

There is nothing wrong with finding purpose in work, loving your subjects, or wanting 'bigger things' in life. But when charts indicate record levels of teenage stress, depression and anxiety, something is definitely up.

Don't let sugar coated exploitative promises guilt trip you into thinking you can't binge-watch all of Queen's Gambit in one night, because I promise you, if you work hard enough, you definitely can. If the looming threat of not being a good student or skipping a gym session prevents you from pursuing a hobby, basic privileged kid time pass, or just staying sane, all against your will, then maybe your goals don’t have your best interests at heart to begin with. So the next time you 'hustle', it should be on the way to a long bath, down the Spotify rabbit hole, or falling back to your bed to have a healthy cry into your pillowcase (just me?), because the day we let trends tell us what we do or don't deserve, and how to spend time that belongs to us and only us, is a tragic one indeed.

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