American culture is increasingly defined by the hustle. Not just working hard, but defining ourselves by how hard we work—striving to set ourselves apart based on how productive we are.
Busyness, not leisure, is the new status symbol.
As we’ve learned to optimize ourselves in order to compete in an economic world where there are few safety nets from companies or the government, and as all of life has increasingly been organized around the market, we’ve learned to see everything in our lives in terms of self-optimization.
Culture and marketing continue to reinforce that message (I’ve written about some of these themes before here). And it often appears as a message of enthusiasm and empowerment, but it’s actually slavery.
As Erin Smith writes, “‘Owning one’s moment’ is a clever way to rebrand ‘surviving the rat race.’”
Not surprisingly, this is leading to burnout.
Sophie Gilbert writes:
The messages that Millennials in the Western world were raised with, in other words, have taught them to work harder and better than ever before, in all aspects of their lives. And that work is making a generation miserable, as Petersen documents, as they strive to attain success and avoid failure, and are permanently attuned to the perceived expectations of others. They’ve constructed flimsy charades of identities based on what they think other people will want. They want to prove that their lives, as Frank says in Tidying Up, are things to be admired, and that their homes, vacations, children, closets all function as projections of their best selves: organized, attractive, authentic. Unattainable.
It’s not just economic slavery, though it is that. As all of life is organized in around the market, we have been shaped in the market and looked to it for security and control, for ways to identify ourselves.
It’s also spiritual slavery.
These themes were in the back of my mind recently when I read Luke 22:24-27. After Jesus had just given them the bread and the wine in the last supper “A dispute broke out among them as to which of them was considered to be the greatest.” Our desire to be the best, to set ourselves apart is not new, of course. It is just manifesting itself in a certain way in our particular economic and political order—and it appears normal.
Jesus told the disciples that, yes, those around you exercise authority in particular ways, “But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”
The church’s battle in this age of self-optimization and burnout is to be defined by Christ. In Christ we know we are loved, that life is a gift, and that God is the one who provides everything we need. The challenge is to connect that with our lived realities in our own individual striving, in our churches, and in our communities. We are secured by the grace and goodness of God, freed from anxiety to secure and define ourselves—freed from the need to do something great—and freed to give ourselves on behalf of others as Christ gave himself on our behalf.
To trust in God’s goodness and provision in the power of the Spirit has real power over hustle culture.
What might this look like in your own life today? Where can you trust God’s love and provision in your own life and move towards rest so that you are more open to the needs of others? This is where real life and freedom are found.
Emily Beth Hill 