Hustle culture is our generation’s most seductive lie.
It preys on our deeply held beliefs that we are fundamentally incomplete, fundamentally broken. Unworthy. That in order to fill the gaping holes within our hearts, we need to strive. We need to do more.
From these metal towers we have sequestered ourselves in, we tell ourselves we have conquered the natural world.
Bigger, better, faster, stronger. That achievement equals endless growth. That value lies in continuous gains, in linear expansion. That truth can be commoditised.
That happiness can be bought.
Feel bad? Do more.
Feel discouraged? Not doing enough.
Feel existentially torn to shreds? It’s because you’re not doing.
Consider, for a moment:
What if real value—what if truth lies not in your doing, but in your being? Not in the volume and tenacity of action, not in the mountains of output, not in the relentless blind pursuit of growth—some imperceivable goal of an imagined future in which happiness finally arrives—
but in the anchored clarity of right now?
Where are you?
What is the inner awareness behind every thought, every passing impulse, every action? Are you contracting into fear, into excuses, into the the belief you need to prove yourself to be worthy? Or can you, in this very moment, return to the awareness that you already are? To the ever-present inner fidelity of life itself, which by its nature is already whole?
Are you listening?
Are you in alignment with what is, or are you lost in the shadows of form?
Are you here?
Look out the window. A tree does not grow endlessly, ad infinitum without regard for its seasons. It grows, it blooms, it sheds, it returns to the earth. It cycles in its rhythm, in symbiosis with its environment. It knows when to reach towards the sun. It knows when to shed its leaves. It responds.
This isn’t even about slowing down. Because you don’t need to stop doing to be.
This is about anchoring where you are.
Because you were never meant to suffer to earn your worth. A flower does not have to prove itself to receive the light of the sun.
This is about waking up within the dream of action, within the identification of toil. Of seeing, clearly, where you still cling to the narratives of should and should not. The self-flagellation of lazy or useless.
Imagine:
What if we lived in a world that recognised that abundance is not measured in pure output, but in the sustainability of systems? One that recognised the interconnectedness of all living beings? One that honoured rhythms instead of trying to control them?
Because endless growth without awareness has a name: cancer.
What would it feel like, to wake up to a society that remembered its own humanity? As a reflection of the world within, and the world without?
As an expression of the rhythm of nature, the symphony of life herself?