摘要：Please explain “hustle culture”, as in this quote: “I think, in some way, we’re all victims of hustle culture. Do you think you’re

Reader question:

Please explain “hustle culture”, as in this quote: “I think, in some way, we’re all victims of hustle culture. Do you think you’re not?”

My comments:

“Hustle culture” makes everyone in the city overworked and exhausted. The speaker thinks all of us are victims or sufferers.

But what is hustle culture?

The culture or social custom of hustling, in short.

What is hustling?

If you are a small-time toy maker, for example, and every weekend, you and your fellow workers are out on the street trying to force a sale onto passersby, you’re hustling your toys. You’re aggressive because you have to – just so that your toy factory can survive.

Or, in addition to your regular job, you have a side hustle (job), then you’re definitely hustling.

Or, if you are constantly working overtime, you’re hustling. And if you feel guilty leaving the office while other colleagues are working overtime, you’re definitely a sufferer of hustle culture.

Or, if you are burning yourself out because you just love work, sacrificing your family and personal life, you’re a sufferer, no doubt.

If you have no hobbies beside work, you’re a sufferer – a sufferer indeed and very sick.

Hustle culture, you see, is the environs people in the city find themselves in today, in which people feel compelled to outwork each other, out-perform each other, out-produce each other, out-earn each other and out-achieve each other. They do so because the concept of work and achievement is being glorified.

As a result and in consequence, people no longer have a meaningful person life. They put work ahead of everything else, including family and health.

Lost is what we want - a life-work balance.

We don’t need to go deep into this. City dwellers all understand it perfectly because hustle culture is so prevalent.

It’s so prevalent that the speaker in our example thinks all of us are victims.

In fact, our speaker wonders: Are you not a victim?

It’s a pertinent question to ask ourselves, I say.

Anyways, here are media examples of “hustle culture”, which, in a nutshell, is the modern disease that forces us to put work ahead of everything else:

1. If you don’t have a side hustle, are you even working? If you don’t have several active revenue streams, are you even making money? If you aren’t an exhausted heap at the end of the day, are you even living your best life?

There are dozens of people out there that will tell you hustling is glamorous. It’s the only way to get that dream car, dream vacation, or retire at 45. They will tell you all their secrets if you want them to. But, pay for the online course first. Thanks.

…

Hustle Culture is doing nothing beyond creating an opportunity for us to identify ourselves as unsatisfied.It is yet another way for us to compare ourselves to someone else and then feel horrible about that comparison. You. Over there. You’re not moving fast enough. Someone else just passed you.

We see that success story of someone who poured their heart, soul, and endless amounts of time and energy into their side hustle and they made it. They grew their in-home artisanal jam-making hobby into a multi-million dollar jam empire.

I hate to rain on anyone’s parade but some of us aren’t meant to be the makers of jam empires. And that’s totally cool. Please stop making us feel less than normal.

We’re continually sold the idea that hustle culture is normal and a functional way to live your life. It’s liberating. It’s empowering.

It’s not.

- The glaring problem with hustle culture, by Vanessa Torre, Mamamia.com.au, September 18, 2020.

2. Many entrepreneurs think working long hours means they’re making big moves in business. However, Daniel Javor explains that working smart and allowing yourself time to unwind might be the key to achieving your dreams faster than you thought.

Scrolling through social media or listening to others working in industry, you may hear things like, ‘the only time you should stop is when you’re done’.

Hustle culture has slowly become a theme in business with many people living in a cycle of wake up, grind, repeat.

Society standards create an assumption that value is measured in our ability to work harder, this is one of the reasons people end up losing their “why.”

Daniel Javor, the founder and CEO of Javor Holdings, explains why hustle culture is not the key to business success.

Daniel was himself a victim of hustle culture. He said: “Once you have tasted success, it becomes challenging to settle for anything less. My success in the digital marketing space was a dream come true but I ended up putting so much pressure on myself, working really hard, and before I knew it, I experienced major burnouts.”

Drained by overworking, Daniel had to take some time off to save himself and his company.

Daniel continued: “Not only does hustle culture leave you demoralized, but it kills your creativity and productivity. A major problem with this kind of work environment is failure can be crippling. Often, when those trapped in the hustle culture encounter failure, they feel like it’s the end of the world, which inhibits them from moving forward. However, failure is a learning opportunity, and it is okay to fail, provided you get back up.”

Daniel shares some of the ways that he was able to overcome the toxic hustle culture: “I allocated a lot of time to myself, started participating in sports, and focused on my vision. To free yourself from this, you firstly need to realize that you are in the cycle and then focus on finding your ‘why’ and work smarter rather than harder.”

Daniel advises to work with longevity in mind so you can achieve more. He said: “Before starting any project, it’s important to understand and analyses its impact on the business in the short and long term. I now focus on fewer tasks which allows me to work on the most impactful tasks and makes me more productive overall.”

While some people support hustle culture, the continuous stress and anxiety caused by burnout can harm your mental and physical well-being.

“The problem is there is only so much one person can do,” says Daniel. “Success and productivity are intertwined, however, productivity is impacted by hustle culture, so in order to achieve success, it is essential to work smarter and not overwork yourself.”

- Daniel Javor explains how to avoid burnout in ‘hustle culture’, ManchesterEveningNews.co.uk, October 5, 2021.

3. As the world’s richest man, one would think that Elon Musk would never have problems finding a good place to sleep. And yet, reports suggest that Musk has elected to sleep on the floor of the DOGE office instead of in, like, a bed.

Following this revelation, many wanted to better understand why a billionaire would voluntarily elect to sleep on the floor of a Washington, D.C. office instead of, like, on a beach somewhere. Here's what we know about the reporting and why Musk might be doing that.

According to reporting in People, Musk has been sleeping on the floor of the DOGE office, which is just steps away from the White House. The reporting cites two Republican sources, who say that Musk has been working out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House compound and is situated directly across from the West Wing.

One source said that Musk has been “holed up” in the office and that he is “sleeping on a couch and sometimes the floor.” The source was quick to add, though, that the EEOB has “great amenities, including a cafeteria and bowling alley,” and said that sleeping in the office is not unheard of in Washington. Some House members sleep in their offices, and then shower in the House gym, apparently.

The source also added that Musk’s son X Æ A-Xii is around “quite a bit,” although it’s unclear if he is also sleeping regularly in the office.

A second source added that Musk stays at Mar-a-Lago when he and the president travel to Florida. Musk has made headlines for odd sleeping arrangements before, per People, and said that he once lived in a Tesla factory for about three years, sleeping on the floor, on couches, and at one point in a tent on the roof (cool).

Musk has long been a proponent of hustle culture.

While Musk may be sleeping in his office because he genuinely feels he has too much work to do, it’s just as likely that Musk wants the reports out there about him sleeping in the office. These reports make it sound like he is working very hard, and in this case, they make it sound like he is working hard on behalf of the American people.

Of course, questions remain about whether the work that Musk is doing is work that a majority of Americans actually want done. Musk has already moved through large chunks of the federal government, wantonly cutting budgets in ways that may or may not even be constitutional.

What seems clear, though, is that Musk wants it to seem like he’s working hard. As a chart of his posting habits indicates, it’s not clear that he’s actually sleeping that much at all, and it is clear that he is spending hours and hours a day on X (formerly Twitter). That might be productive by some metric, but it doesn’t suggest that he is laser-focused on the line items in every federal budget.

- The World’s Richest Man Is Apparently Sleeping on the Floor of the DOGE Office, Distractify.com, February 14, 2025.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

来源：中国日报网