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mbg Contributor
Imani Quinn is an author, astrologer, and quantum healing artist.
Image by ALTO IMAGES / Stocksy
October 07, 2024
Working hard is an admirable quality that leads to praise, awards, a good paycheck, and usually a good life. This centers a lot of our lives, but as we shift our priorities as a cultural movement towards self-care, having boundaries at work, and taking time for ourselves, that work-hard notion has a different ring to it. Let’s compare the difference between hustle culture and alignment within our work and purpose and see which one serves our well-being the most.
Hustle culture is a socially acceptable means for making a living that glorifies hard work at the cost of our well being. Alignment asks us to challenge that notion and look at rest as an act of resistance that ultimately takes that same amount of effort but with a different focus and more desirable outcome.
What is hustle culture?
Hustle culture is a glorified way of looking at overtime hours, staying busy, and maximizing your time while striving for professional success. In the pursuit of following your dreams, where anything is possible, hustle culture can be really positive.
Its motto is that if you work hard enough, anything you dream is possible; you just have to be willing to sacrifice your time and, with that, other things you may prioritize. Hustle culture has received a bad rap for taking away time from mental health, physical health, self-care and family due to its demand on your time in return for a promise of success.
What is a side hustle?
This is like having a 9 to 5 to pay the bills, and the side hustle is your dream career, which you’re doing in your spare time until it becomes more substantial. You could also have a side hustle because the cost of living is higher than what you make from one income, so you need an additional job.
Either way, this structure asks you to pour the majority of your time into work, productivity, and making money. This is all part of earning a living to survive. It’s also an acknowledgement of self-worth based on your professional achievements, which can lead to awards at school and professionally.
What is alignment?
When something is in alignment, it is working with flow and ease. It may take hard work and challenging experiences to align things, but once everything’s in place, they move effortlessly. Spiritually speaking, alignment consists of living your life based on your soul’s purpose. It’s moving from your intuition and surrendering control to the universe when your mind is getting in the way of the bigger picture.
You know that feeling you get when you make a plan for yourself and put the effort and experience into making it perfect? And then everything goes wrong and not according to plan, but then you realize things turned out exactly as they were supposed to? That is living in alignment.
Letting the natural flow of the universe take over and releasing control when necessary. In order to get into this state of trust and alignment, it takes work and active choice; it is a way of living just like hustle culture is. Here’s how:
- Meditation: Meditation can help you slow down in order to clear your mind so that all of the clutter can be silenced. Once your overactive thoughts that want to solve the problem are silenced you have space to listen to your intuition. Intuition can be a soft voice, but it’s usually steady. In order to decipher your inner voice when trying to make a decision, listen for the inner knowing that doesn’t change, it’s constant, that is your intuition.
- Boundaries: Set boundaries with work. As we’ve mentioned, work will only take all of the time that you’re willing to give it. When you create boundaries, it allows more time for other things (i.e., a side hustle).
- Focus on health: Once you have created more time in your life you can focus it on your physical and mental health. When your mental health is strong it allows you to think more clearly and get in touch with your inner voice and purpose.
- Shift your energy: Energy is connected to the law of attraction, the idea that what you focus your energy on you will attract, which is why it’s such a great tool for manifestation. If you want more abundance or opportunities in your life the more you focus on them, surround yourself with them, they will be drawn to you. Same with negative thoughts and fatigue, which can come from the burn out of hustle culture. When you have time for rest and your mental health it creates more space in your energy for the law of attraction with positive things you want to manifest and bring in.
- Self-worth: Self-worth and how we define it is very important for alignment. If we only receive self-worth from outward validation, likecareer awards, then what do we do when we don’t receive them? Self-worth is innately yours, it does not have to be given. Living by that belief will make your boundaries and alignment with what you want easier. It’ll also change how you value your time and prioritize your purpose. Then, the universe will more likely bring you things that are energetically a match.
- Abundance vs scarcity mindset: Hustle culture is rooted in a scarcity mindset. It says that you have to work harder than anyone else in order to get what you want because there is not enough for everybody. Abundance mindset says that the cup is in overflow, which makes room for the possibility of alignment for everyone. Abundance says that what is meant for me will not pass me by, and what is meant for you will do the same. Abundance allows us to rest, because we know even if we rest there is still enough time to get everything done.
The takeaway
Working hard is an admirable quality, but what if we took the time to reallocate what we work hard at and for? We work hard with our time for money to survive because our basic needs are getting met. What if we worked hard at our rest in a culture that doesn’t require us to take naps, schedule acupuncture, or say no to extra work?
Setting the necessary boundaries to prioritize your mental and physical health could be seen as hard work in a culture that doesn’t promote it. When you take time to rest, you allow yourself to trust in your intuition and the divine timing of the universe, which is living in alignment.