So why have we been swallowing these notions about work and value that were nonsense to begin with, and just getting sillier? We have known that the “higher mission” idea … was just fake, just another way of getting people to work 24 hours a day.
But a lot of status came with feeling so indispensable. Unemployment is a famous driver of misery, and overemployment, to be so needed, can feel very bolstering. Many people describe having been anxious about the loss of status before they left their jobs; more anxious than about the money, where you can at least count what you are likely to have and plan around it.
– “Is the exhausting cult of productivity finally over?”, The Guardian, Apr 2021
I don’t disagree with the writer. Certainly the prospect or threat of unemployment causes disproportionate stress to the person whose work is her identity.
I also think think this is only part of the reason why people are taking another look at their participation in hustle culture. I think it’s that the overhead of the constant ambient stress of the pandemic has left little room for rejuvenation of the minds of us people already working ourselves to the limit.
Whether we peep into Twitter or Facebook or the websites we have bookmarked for quick between-meetings distraction, or catch the evening news, or scroll through our Whatsapp groups, distress is rife. We cannot relax. And therefore, there is no slack in our systems.
No wonder so many of us are re-evaluating our relationship with work and its rewards – we have to make room in our minds somewhere.