Business or Busy-ness?
“What’s the ROI of a piano? For me, it’s zero. For Billy Joel and Elton John, it has been substantial.” — Gary “Vee” Vaynerchuk, Internet Businessman of the Year
It’s very fashionable these days to own your own business. Now that you can start an Instagram and Facebook Page for ZERO DOLLARS DOWN, you can have the feeling of a storefront without any actual investment, planning, or strategic direction. But these things don’t matter in 2020. What matters is that you hustle.
For those unfamiliar with the hustle, it means that you’re always on it. Always thinking about your business, always working. The Oxford Dictionary defines the noun as “busy movement and activity” but, more tellingly, the verb as “forcing (someone) to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction.”
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Unceremonious, hurried movement in a direction towards…what? Wealth? Fame? Something. It doesn’t matter. Just hustle.
“Wake up before everybody else and work into the night. Hustle.” — Gary Vee
The problem with all this hustling is that it puts a premium on activity and a discount on actual thinking. It demands a lifestyle where only the ends justify the means, but hilariously manages to screw up both. You run around hurriedly because you think that leads to success; not only are you less likely to achieve success because you’re not thinking strategically or looking at the big picture, you also manage to become miserable and disconnected from yourself and others in the process.
Of course, there are times when working really long hours is helpful and necessary. Once you know where you’re going, you know what your milestones are, and you have adequately good mental and physical habits, then yes, hustle. Work hard to achieve your dreams. Meet those deadlines. Make decisions and stick to them.
I’m not here to shit on hard work. I’m here to shit on the mindless hustle.
The failed IPO of WeWork is a great metaphor for the failure of hustle culture in general, since that company is (was?) one of its greatest symbols. Thousands of “entrepreneurs” were once holed up inside its walls, caffeinating themselves to Narnia and back every day while listening to Gary Vee podcasts. Just like the company itself, the culture is built on an unsustainable foundation of busy-ness over critical thought.
And we’ve seen that play out in America at large. In his 1995 book, “Demon Haunted World,” Carl Sagan warned of a “dumbing down of America…a kind of celebration of ignorance.” This hustle culture is part of that, and I’d argue it is connected to the popularity of conspiracy theories from flat-earth to anti-vaccination, and definitely epitomized by a President who thinks that World War 2 ended around 1918. Anti-intellectualism simply means a lack of critical, contextual thought. Refusing to put your work in the context of your goals and life is an example of that.
A piano might not directly translate to revenue, but neither does exercise and it’s still critical. The best reason to play piano is because it feels good. Because life isn’t forever. I believe it’s time to focus less on busy-ness and actually on the business at hand, which is moving thoughtfully in a desired direction, and allowing yourself to be a whole person along the way.
