Every other year or so, I end up reading E. M. Forster’s short story called “The Other Side of the Hedge.” Although it’s more than a hundred years old, it’s as if it were written yesterday, addressing hustle culture and, generally, all the other success-first ideologies of today. It questions our compulsion to keep moving forward no matter what in order to achieve something. It is one of those stories that makes us stop for a moment and think about the hamster wheel we’ve been put on. It asks us to cool down and have a refreshing drink. And in that pause, we find the space to raise important questions again, which had dust settle down on them ever since we graduated from university and entered the workforce.
Why are we conditioned to worship productivity?
Is what we call progress really progress or a simulacrum of progress?
…
One of my friends is so addicted to work that spending time with his family feels like a waste of time for him. All he wants to do is “keep building” his body, his business, etc. He never says it like that, of course, but you can infer it when you read between the lines of what he speaks. When we’re having a beer, he (almost exclusively) likes to palaver about his adventures at the workplace, and he’ll talk and talk as a toddler babbles in his crib after a long day when it’s his bedtime. And whenever he talks about family matters, it’s always how time with the wife and kids, chores, and errands kept him from what he wanted to achieve during the week, the month, the year. It’s as if, using different words, he’s always saying, “Only if I didn’t have a family, I’d attain my dreams.”
My friend, as you see, is a proud man who has his eyes set on business objectives; everything else is an obstacle getting in his way. Although there was a time when he claimed that getting married and raising children he loved was the dream that he was after…
It’s funny how what you do turns you into someone who does that thing. My friend worked hard to start a family. Then, his family became the thing that kept him from working hard, which was something he initially did to achieve the initial dream — starting a family. He worked hard for such a long period of time that he became a person who works hard for no reason but vaguely defined progress.
And now, it’s like he’s constantly trying to “get back on track” because life interfered with business, leisure interrupted work, love stood in the way of progress…
Some people (have been programmed to) believe that the good life is achieved when, in reality, the good life is practiced. Improving your life materially is often necessary for most of us, but it’s only one part of the game. We must also be present spiritually to reap the joys we have planted.
