"Grindset is the mindset".
I had a friend text me that a while back, and it seems to be the motto of today's world.
It's hustle culture – the act of incessantly applying self-pressure to succeed in whatever cause, whether it be schoolwork, fitness, or money. There are no breaks, only breaking points, and if you don't come remotely close to reaching yours, you're weak.
Most importantly, you have to be emotionless – you cannot feel. To be able to feel is to be potentially feeble, to potentially succumb, to be potentially distracted, to potentially quit. Stoicism breeds productivity.
We've come to glamorize this ideology, most prominently through social media. Scrolling through your feed, you'd find clips of individuals working late into the night and pictures featuring luxurious lifestyles with a voiceover in the background, rambling on about "what it takes" or even attacking the viewer for sitting on his/her phone and "being lazy".
My question: do you truly want to be an emotionless workaholic engine? Always running? Never changing tires? Never stopping for gas?
For those who do, great – stop reading. But for those who are hesitant, I'd like for you to consider what you may be missing out on.
As social animals, we thrive on connection, we thrive on the feeling of belonging – no, we crave it.
Yet, the seemingly inhuman workhorses you see online teach the exact opposite. They boast about being isolated, grinding for themselves, deleting all forms of communication, and never seeing family or friends, attributing those actions as "dedication". Is that "what it takes" today to be successful?
Something I've always wondered about is the purpose of emotions. Why do we feel what we feel?
Certain feelings are universal among not just humans, but every living thing. There's "fear" and maybe even "disgust".
Fear because, without it, how could you ever detect and respond to potential threats in your environment? It's crucial to one's survival.
I think disgust does the same thing – it's like taste aversion: with this psychological, learned phenomenon, you avoid consuming potentially poisonous foods, again helping you survive.
These both are animalistic traits, so then what about the others – the more human ones? What's the point of regret? What's the point of embarrassment? Of nostalgia? Of guilt?
Is there even a point of happiness? I would argue that you don't fundamentally need to be happy to survive. When was the last time you saw a happy wild rooster that was still alive because of its happiness? Have you ever even seen a truly happy wild rooster? When was the last time a fish died because and only because it was sad? Do animals live solely to be happy? That sounds ridiculous. How many clinically depressed humans are there in the world who are still alive and manage to recover?
Yes – happiness, guilt, nostalgia. They're not imperative to biological survival. But, you need them if you want to live.
What distinguishes us from wild animals is our ability to feel, our capacity to live instead of surviving – and that's because of our dominance in the natural world. We are the kings of the food chain; we have no predators; we have leisure; we, for the most part, don't need to worry about whether there'll be food the next day or if there'll even be a next day at all; we can be spiritually fulfilled.
Yet, today, we still choose to act like animals. We're robotic, working at computers all day, disregarding friends, disregarding family because we're staying on the "grind". We make the excuse that we're just securing our futures, making sure we'll be able to survive.
When and where will you find the time to live?
Love it!