#grindculture

[am-journey]

Work-Life Balance in Your Twenties: Do We Really Need It?

So, I have this friend. Let’s call him the Renaissance guy—you know, the type who’s smart, into art, cinema, and probably has more talent in his pinky than most of us do in our entire beings. He’s got everything it takes to succeed. But there’s one thing about him that I just don’t vibe with: his obsession with work-life balance.

Don’t get me wrong. I get where he’s coming from. The idea of keeping your career and personal life in perfect harmony is like the holy grail of adulthood. But here’s the thing: we’re in our twenties! This is the time when we’re supposed to be hungry, reckless, and chasing dreams with a borderline unhealthy obsession. Not meticulously measuring out how much time to spend on work versus leisure.

The way I see it, your twenties are about building the foundation for the rest of your life. This is when you have the energy, the drive, and (hopefully) fewer responsibilities tying you down. You’re not supposed to have it all figured out right now. You’re supposed to be grinding, learning, failing, and figuring out what really matters. Work-life balance? That’s for your thirties and forties, when you’ve already put in the work to get where you want to be.

Honestly, I think the whole concept of work-life balance can sometimes hold people back. It’s like giving yourself an excuse to take it easy when you could be pushing yourself harder. Sure, burnout is a real thing, and I’m not saying we should all work ourselves into the ground. But there’s a difference between overworking and being obsessed with a goal. Sometimes, that extra grind is what separates those who make it from those who don’t.

And look, I’m not trying to diss my friend. His perspective is valid, and I respect it. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong, and his balanced approach will lead to some groundbreaking masterpiece while I’m stuck guzzling energy drinks at 3 a.m., trying to meet some impossible deadline. But even if that happens, I’ll know I gave it my all.

At the end of the day, I think it’s about priorities. If you’re cool with the slow and steady route, go for it. But if you’ve got dreams that keep you awake at night, maybe work-life balance can take a backseat—at least for now.

So yeah, that’s my two cents. What do you think? Is work-life balance a must in your twenties, or is it just a fancy excuse to play it safe? Let me know.

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[irapinera]

Let's get this bread

-Aladdin

[thedirtbagdad]

Years ago, in another lifetime, when I worked in the bubble of technology start-ups, the prevailing marketing mantra was something to the effect of, “Our product helps you get more done in less time!“ At the time, something intuitively struck me as being off with this thinking. My younger contrarian and ironic self created a new phrase, “I don’t want to do more in less time… I want to do less in more time.” Decades later, this impression resonates more than ever. Increasingly, people are realizing, in light of recent global events, that red-lining it throughout a lifetime ultimately exhausts you and, unchecked, may prematurely wear out your engine. “I’ll rest when I’m dead” accomplishes the final “to-do” item (death), yet does not allow one to ever accomplish rest. When rest is made a low priority and seen as a weakness and a lacking, well… our lives have a way of manifesting that. #grindculture #triciahersey #prioritizerest #balance #wholebodyhealth @thenapministry https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnc2u-1SV_kxPgMmdHBOmd2TjltP3Xe7K8QSsI0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[skincareroutine]

all those wellness grindculture ppl who hop from one self-help book to the next would actually increase their quality of life when they shift from self-help books to non-fiction and realise that there's nothing innately wrong with you because you dont make a million dollars a year at 21 and there is something wrong with the world being run by private equity and monopolies that destabilize communities. like not everything about you boils down to or can be fixed with radical individualism

[commonpigeon]

my only goal for today was to finally crack open les mis and i didnt do it buuuuut i did cook a meal with more than 3 steps for the first time perhaps this month perhaps even longer. #grind #grindculture

[digital-marketing-services-dms]

Welcome to the Selena Rezvani channel. In this video, I am going to discuss 4 grind culture sayings that need to RIP in the workplace. These overused phrases have become staples of toxic work environments, encouraging burnout and unsustainable practices. So watch the video till the end and subscribe for more leadership tips!

#selenarezvani #grindculture #workplacewellness #workplacetips #leadershiptips #workculture

[owynlyons]

An important thing to remember is that art is more than anything, for your soul. Sometimes it may hurt, sometimes you may need to take a break or experience other mediums, but if your mind and your heart and your soul are drawn to creating things, it doesn't matter if you get attention or anything from them, simply making them is the most important thing. Just a thought considering all that's gone on in recent years with regards to the commodification of art and artistic pursuits being subsumed by grindculture.

[swimming---upstream]

Rest as Resistance

Most mornings I wake up between 6-6:30am to take the puppy for a pee and let the chickens out of the coop. I’m not naturally a morning person but I’ve come to appreciate these early outings; watching the sun rise, enjoying the glimmer of the dew on the wildflowers. But there comes a time when I calculate in my head the number of hours of sleep the previous night as I decide whether to stay awake or go back to sleep. I weigh the possibility of a quiet early morning cup of coffee and snuggle with dogs with the memory of my exhaustion level at 7pm the evening before and almost always choose sleep.

Lately, when I snuggle back into our family nest to doze, I feel a bit smug, like my sleep is in defiance of the work culture that pressures me to be ever-more productive. It feels a bit like a quiet “fuck you” to my own mental conditioning brought on my a society that tries to guilt trip me for taking care of my body and mind.

"People are waking up. People are waking up to the truth of their manipulation under toxic systems. People are waking up to heal. People are waking up to rest." - The Nap Ministry @thenapministry

It’s funny that capitalism can rob us of our bodies for so long and convince us that this is normal. My partner’s knees are shot from working as a mechanic for 10 years. My son used to fall asleep in his classroom in grade 2. I used to commute over an hour one way to a corporate job I hated. What’s worse: we now glorify this grind culture: side jobs, exhausted boss babes, endless busy-ness.

Even after a year of checking out, I still struggle with valuing the quality of my day on how productive it was. What’s worse: on how financially productive it was. My partner and I recently made the decision that I would stop taking on new clients in my freelance work so that I can focus on the boys, growing food, and our family business. I was amazed at how hard of a transition this was. Even after all this time, I still saw my paid work as more valuable than my non-paid work. And only in the last month have I made any progress in unlearning that rest is equally valuable to work, paid or un-paid.

I’m slowly discovering that my existence goes beyond the labour that my body/mind can produce. I’m also discovering that I do not need to sacrifice rest in order to be deemed worthy. For those that carry the additional burden of oppression like BIPOC and neurodivergent folks, this pressure to be productive is extra heavy and the need for rest all the more dire. It’s time that we dismantle the capitalist culture that robs us of our sleep-ins, our naps, our snuggles on the couch in the name of profitability.

[christinemonk]

As diabolical as it sounds, every human crisis is caused by humans for humans.

Can you think of any? I have some on my fingertips. Climate crisis. Racism. Poverty. Hunger. And the most volatile of the current time — The Great Resignation of 2021.

While we are at it, let’s talk about The Great Resignation of 2021. In simplest terms, people are leaving their jobs. They do not want to work anymore. Millennials are most affected in this Great Resignation of 2021.  According to CNET, the driving factor is burnout. The hustle culture is equating to existential dread. Hustle culture is toxic and people are questioning whether finding meaning in their job is fruitless pursuit.

For the woke and aware generation, the priority is mental well-being. Corporate millennials are not okay with hustle culture. It is losing its shine and quickly. Following the same trail of thought, let’s talk about—what is hustle culture? How can we unlearn the grind and relearn the rest?

[gritcitywitch]

We’re All Drowning

The thought of going back to work gives me anxiety. I don’t know what I’ll be walking into, or whether I’ll be able to mentally and emotionally handle the workload. The last few nights I had been there, working in the Covid unit had pushed me to update my indeed resume on lunch break. I’ve been at this place for nearly five years and worked in all of the departments, finding myself right back in the position I had begun — an NAR.

I’m an abuse survivor and suffer from cPTSD, BPD1, OCD. I’m Neurodivergent (ESP Autism). I’m able to ‘mask’ the projections most of the time. I’ve spent my life trying to hide rather than be misunderstood. A blender. It took me working at this place to discover myself. That I have a voice. But half the time I don’t have the energy to use it. I flinch and throw my phone when it rings. Texting seems so easy until you remember you might have to carry on a conversation. Being asked “How’ve you been?” sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Make it uncomfortable with the truth, or say ‘kill me now please’? I hit them with uncomfortable truth, always. Because I need help.

At first, I was embarrassed to tell people I currently sleep in a tent in my brother’s backyard. I don’t look or present myself as someone you’d think is one misunderstanding away from being on the street with their kids. I’ve lived at his house for six years now, was only supposed to be here temporarily. In the beginning, I made some poor choices with my money. Most of those choices were in a frantic attempt to get out of my brother’s house and away from my family. Survival mode can sometimes cause you to make bad choices. My kids and I live where we are not wanted and we’re very aware of it. My main focus since November 2020 has been to make up for all the time and money I’ve wasted on the wrong things and people, but it goes unseen — because I don’t make enough money to not be here, in my brother’s home. I get paid to take care of the elderly but that pay doesn’t afford my existence. I can’t afford to exist…

“I get paid to take care of the elderly but that pay doesn’t afford my existence. I can’t afford to exist.”

Where I live (Tacoma, Washington), you can’t avoid having to chip out at least $2000 a month on rent, and you need to make 3x that to qualify; it doesn’t matter how big the unit is. Most jobs around here are retail, sales, customer service, or healthcare that pay $13-$18 an hour. When you use Lyft every day to get to and from work, it begins to add up even faster when you already don’t have money. I’ve become realistic in accepting that unless I can get people to pool their money with me, renting or owning just isn’t going to happen soon enough. I began looking into Alternative Living and even that is a costly endeavor. I began looking into grants, loans, I even took the Home Ownership class. Started reading and researching more, fell down the YouTube rabbit hole for a solid month trying to figure out a solution to our living situation. I was able to pull together almost $6000 and then was rushed into purchasing a trailer. By the time that I had gotten it, it seemed everyone else had the same idea in mind — all the RV sites were full. My mother made sure to guilt me into believing that this was my fault, assuring me that I am the burden I already knew myself to be.

I dream of having land. Building a home just big enough for the four of us. Turning that land into an Urban Food Forest. I dream of helping feed my community. I walk by empty homes and visualize local, sustainable produce growing abundant in their yards. I want to put together a Sensory Garden for my workplace to enrich the lives of the people I care for every day. This situation has given me what some would call a ‘Soul Purpose’. I am happiest when my hands are in the soil and when I’m helping others. So, amidst all of the chaos, I obtained a certificate in Permaculture Design — but life knows how to take a bad situation and make it worse. After avoiding Covid-19 for two years, I succumbed to the plague. I missed three weeks of unpaid work, only to set me behind further. On average I spend $400 on transportation for work. I spent last week stressing over how the hell I was going to make it into my shifts. Imagine, not being able to afford missing work, but not being able to afford to go. How many others are like me? How many others feel like they’re stuck, waiting? That are trying their asses off and coming up empty-handed?

Imagine, not being able to afford missing work, but not being able to afford to go. How many others are like me?

We have become so detached from the natural world that we think this is normal, this ‘Grind Culture’. We live in an age of acceptable cruelty. We do good so we can justify our bad. We torture ourselves. It’s the only thing we have control over. There’s an elephant in the room… we’re all drowning. We fight over toilet paper. We live on and in electronics; we are the machines. We’re all trapped.

[windvexer]

In my early 20s I saw a post on a forum asking for help learning dreamwork, specifically for the purpose of using dreamtime to learn magic.

This isn't bad in and of itself. I've learned really cool magic from dreams.

But the person (a young person also in their early 20s) said they wanted to learn this skill because to them, time sleeping was time wasted. You've only got a hundred years to live, was the argument. Time is too short. Hours in the day spent learning aren't enough - your life is half wasted if you don't capitalize on your dreams, too.

I was young too and I saw the utility in it. Until middle aged witches started posting and pointing out that letting grindculture infect your dreams,

literally feeling like you're an underachiever because you aren't making your sleep productive,

is just the fucking worst.

FUN QUESTION: Do you know any spells to live to be 80-100 years old, but still keep yourself from physically aging past 30? SERIOUS QUESTION: What's the closest thing to doing this in reality? What about metaphorically or on the astral plane?

Hmmmmm nope. As a witch I believe in becoming a hag as early as possible. Revel in growing old and every visible sign of it. Not everybody gets a chance to do that.

As for metaphors and such, the truth is that most of us reach an age that we don't mentally mature beyond. You can still become wiser (or more embittered depending on what you're going for), but that doesn't mean you'll feel older. I hit that age about 10 years ago at age 26. My mom says she still feels about 24. Remember this when you interact with your elders.

Want to look young longer? Never walk under the sun, never smile, never drink or eat anything unhealthy. Moisturize constantly. Sleep at least 8 hours a night, and definitely don't have kids. By not living your life you can stave off aging a little bit longer. Totally worth it, right?

[mrsveejimoh]

Checkin: Are You Prioritizing Rest?

Checkin: Are You Prioritizing��Rest?

[thedirtbagdad]

The last moments of light prior to winter break. As it seems to happen, I’m again the last one in the parking lot. This not a #grindculture badge of honor… rather, I’m grateful to work in a culture where I can be the last one to leave and it’s before 5 pm. Plus, a great way to become friends with our valued custodial staff. After being sick since Thanksgiving and getting three weeks of work completed in three days, I’m ready and grateful for rest. This looks like not doing much of anything. It’s precious time. Reflective. For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic, Time takes on the strain until it breaks; Then all the unattended stress falls in On the mind like an endless, increasing weight. The light in the mind becomes dim. Things you could take in your stride before Now become laborsome events of will. Weariness invades your spirit. Gravity begins falling inside you, Dragging down every bone. The tide you never valued has gone out. And you are marooned on unsure ground. Something within you has closed down; And you cannot push yourself back to life. You have been forced to enter empty time. The desire that drove you has relinquished. There is nothing else to do now but rest And patiently learn to receive the self You have forsaken in the race of days. At first your thinking will darken And sadness take over like listless weather. The flow of unwept tears will frighten you. You have traveled too fast over false ground; Now your soul has come to take you back. Take refuge in your senses, open up To all the small miracles you rushed through. Become inclined to watch the way of rain When it falls slow and free. Imitate the habit of twilight, Taking time to open the well of color That fostered the brightness of day. Draw alongside the silence of stone Until its calmness can claim you. Be excessively gentle with yourself. Stay clear of those vexed in spirit. Learn to linger around someone of ease Who feels they have all the time in the world. Gradually, you will return to yourself, Having learned a new respect for your heart And the joy that dwells far within slow time. (at Tongva Land) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmaD7u5P1zwirUN2tFO6NQZeUtA1JQYTTnMXNs0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[skincareroutine]

i wont even get out of bed for 4 ravioli i need at least 8 #grindculture

[vagysmal]

Not stopping until we have achieved female world domination, so what if women are not oppressed anymore? 😇 Next step is just around the corner 💪💪💪