“Bring back 2016!” was the common cry ringing in my ears as December transitioned to January. So I tried, did my part, found genuine joy in playing my favourite tunes from the era and swiping to the Rio de Janeiro filter on Instagram. But something still felt missing. Yes, Let Me Love You and Lean On still hit, but was I this busy in 2016?
I don’t think I was. I don’t think any of us were. I was listening to these songs with my cousins, with my siblings, on VH1 or on YouTube, I was dancing to them. Now? I’m working as prime Yo Yo Honey Singh raps into my ear. Before COVID helped work permeate into the house, the kitchen counter, the bedroom – before we were constantly told to meet deadlines, the world was a softer, kinder place. It had its flaws, sure, but it was a world willing to learn and adapt, to mould itself according to the information people would learn. Hustle culture meant very different in the context of 2016, certainly.
How are we supposed to have a 2016 summer if we are chasing a deadline that looms like a guillotine? How are we supposed to raise our faces and admire the gradient sunset sky if we cannot step away from the laptops and phones we are forcibly moored to?
Make no mistake – I do not advocate for the death of ambition. I choose work that I wish to do, that I am genuinely interested in, experience I know I will carry with me and is important to me, experience that helps me progress and not stagnate. I choose them with full knowledge and responsibility of the work that is ahead, and it always helps that there are empathetic people on the other side, bridging the gap. But hustle culture today is truly the antithesis of ambition – it is exploitative, forced upon people, benefits only a few and pays in experience (permanently). How many kids have had to choose a career they never wanted? How many of us have had to compete in a rat race since we were kids, whatever lane (studies, dramatics, dance, you get the drift) that race may have been in?
Hustle culture is also the death of rest in the way it makes you commodify your hobby and skill, wrings it from something you do organically, inspiringly, unforced. It is not supposed to be forced, especially if your hobby is in the arts. A hobby meant to help you destress is instead shoved into an office box or search bar, marketed as a shiny skill that makes you more desirable to employers. Hobbies, people, we need to have hobbies that do not adhere to hustling!
I do not want to capture your attention longer than this. What I do want to do is spit in the face of hustle culture, which we have unfortunately been told to adhere to, and encourage you to shut the laptop and touch grass, to do your hobbies for yourself and not for anyone else – 2016 style, for best results.
See you in the real world.