Hustle culture in India
Hustle culture has been around for a decade or so now, mainly characterized by employees either by the demand of the task at hand or due to their drive to be the best performer, working late at the workplace; arrive as first one at office and leave work as the last one. Slowly companies started recognizing the toxicity around this and started encouraging their employees to avail their vacation hours, taking wellness day offs, and overall having a better work life balance. Then the pandemic hit, which accelerated the need for this balance, which both companies and employees agreed equally.
Another facet of this hustle culture centers around students, from schools to tuitions to IIT JEE couching, the hustle of a student never ends. I have seen some of the young YouTubers, who had gone through this non ending grind, openly discussing the toxicity around this always hustling students life. I am hoping the parents and students will wake up to see the reality As it is. Students are not super humans and they also need right amount of sleep, exercise and balanced diet. In fact these needs to be more essential for students, as they are still in their development stage of the brain.
Why this article now if hustle culture has been around for long?
Then why did I chose to write about topic, what is in it for us at the current moments?
We have a few things to unpack here, we are all feeling the heat of recession at least mildly this year.
That means insecurities about job, and financial wellbeing.
If I have to believe the ads YouTube is pushing to me, currently in India, hustle culture is taking another leap, alongside of another cultural phenomena “The gig Economy”.
There are many mentors out there, who are offering to mentor our already insecure working class to generate multiple income streams.
With rise of such mentorship programs, I do feel, at least a percentage of people will venture into the new hustle culture.
In fact that is good stuff, here in this life of YES! Space, we are all for anything which will give us freedom, specifically responsible freedom.
The problem with Hustle culture:
You might think, hearing about this trending “Financial Freedom ” and “Multiple streams of Income” ,we have been doing that already, we have FDs, shares, gold and real estate which could give us second income but they are all passive income streams.
Once and done!
Let me explain what do I mean by new hustle culture. Instead of hustling in your main job, you branch out and create multiple income streams for yourself.
The new age hustle culture is about creating more income streams by picking up side gigs or side jobs or atleast partially active income streams, that mean you are putting at least some initial time in it.
Few examples could be, creating coaching content in Udemy, picking up a second side job, creating content in social media. With so many platform such as Upwork to pick up side gigs, sky would be your limit.
How do we handle this
As ancient roman and Greek philosophers said, freedom is an opportunity to create self-discipline.
More than ever, you are in charge of your spare time now. So no one else is going to decide what we do with our spare time.
This is the time you normally spend with your family, working out, taking walks and pursuing hobbies.
So much of this precious time you are ready to compromise for a side gig.
This is a very personal choice we all need to make very mindfully, considering your financial wellbeing and overall wellbeing of your life.
There is no standard framework. You are responsible for managing it, allocating your time wisely to your wellbeing, your relationships and social life.
So stay mindful and be happy!
To watch the video on the same topic, click below:
