Unlearning Hustle Culture: the lie of constant action.

THE STORY – “To speak usefully for ten minutes, you should remain silent for ten days.” – On the lost grounds of quietude and seeking answers in silence.

With THE STORY I’m sharing words from my soul, stories from my life, and the myth of my experience. Today I’ll take you on a little journey into a booklet I was gifted, that, unexpectedly, lead me to truly see why we need to unlearn hustle culture. Like, right now.

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One of my oldest friends had just returned from a trip to India, and she posted me a gorgeous, hand-made bag. Adorned with golden threads and sewn from colourful fabrics, it oozed memories of mesmerising landscapes and lands I have never set foot on.

I zipped it open, and inside was a booklet. Happiness & Peace, the cover read. And a note that said: I got this for you in an ashram we visited. Something a little different. Maybe it will inspire your writing!

Last night I read it. And it did inspire me to write. But not about happiness.

Instead, it got me thinking about the expectations we put on ourselves as creators, and how bizarre they actually are – especially when feeling into the truth of what this little booklet set out to teach me as I snuggled into the duvet, two hot water bottles close by and a cat at the end of my bed, not really expecting anything in particular from this little, pink printout.

I got through its 28 pages reasonably quickly, my mind distracted here and there and struggling to hold my attention focused on the words that sometimes felt a little too centred on a yogi’s life, and a little far removed from my lived reality in order to fully take them in as actionable advice. I was gently inspired, nodded a silent, affirmative yes to many remarks, and was ready to scan over the last pages to put the book aside, ticked off as read, and go to sleep.

But then then I arrived at the very chapter that seemed to have been written for me. About me. About many of us creators, mystic business builders, writers, artists. A chapter about calm, and about agitation and haste. About the restlessness that pushes us to move at all times. About illusive action.

On the very last page, it reads:

“I said once that, to speak usefully for ten minutes, you should remain silent for ten days. I could add that, to act usefully for one day, you should keep quiet for a year! Of course, I am not speaking of the ordinary day-to-day acts that are needed for the common external life, but of those who have or believe that they have something to do for the world. And this silence I speak of is the inner quietude that those alone have who can act without being identified with their action, merged into it and blinded and deafened by the noise and form of their own movement. Stand back from your action and rise into an outlook above these temporal motions; enter into the consciousness of Eternity. Then only you will know what true action is”.

– The Mother. Happiness & Peace.
Compiled by Vijay from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

It is a symptom of the time we live in, that you, probably as much as me, know the feeling of needing to push ahead, move on, get things done, stay in action to get anywhere. If only I make myself move one inch per day, if only I take one step forward, wrestling myself into action no matter what… isn’t it certain I will arrive?

Hustle culture has taught us that silence is deadly.

Social media teaches us that to stay relevant we have to keep talking. Our economy functions largely on the principle of producing more, consuming more – action keeps the machine running.

But at what cost?

When I read those lines last night, they didn’t feel to me like a “rule” made up by a wisdom keeper, who, with a raised finger and a stern face wants to teach us their ways. It felt like organic truth.

Why would we, and what we create, be any different from other natural processes of creation? How is it that we have come to believe that we are meant to be action-machines, word-producers, all year round, all day long – why would our creativity, our very being, be exempt from the processes of germination and gestation?

I feel grieve when I think of the hours, days, months – years even – that I have lost to frantic action, directionless movement, not following a soulful calling, but a sense of panic, time running out, everyone is sprinting, so I need to sprint, too, even though I don’t know where I am going. I want to hug past Klara who signed up for the next best course at uni, just to keep moving, who applied for the next best job, just to not fall behind – because I had learned that you are accepted as someone who at least “tries” when you keep hustling, moving, doing.

But when you sit back in silence, when you remove yourself from the world to find yourself – then the others will overtake, get ahead, and you will be seen as the lazy one, the one who chose stillstand over success.

Oh what a lie that story is.

I wonder, what would we do if our systems were built on silence, calm, rest and periods of gestation as a natural, non-negotiable part of any kind of creative endeavour? Of being alive?

What depth, what divine substance would we be able to transmit in just one sentence, if we had the space for its words to grow roots before we unleash them into the whirlwind of the world’s attention?

What face would social media have if we took away the pressure to stay consistent? How would we redefine consistency? Would it become something a tree could commit to, a flower, a river…?

I don’t have answers.

And that’s how it is meant to be, I think.

Maybe answers would be just like illusive action – an easy way out, but not the magical, untrodden path of the soul woods that we seek.

As always, I’d love to hear your perspectives in the comments!

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Klara is a soul-led brand creator, vision doula and mystic living mentor.

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