By Jose IV T. Lopez, University of Cebu, Political Science
Some people call it life’s ups and downs. But for me, the chorus of an old song just keeps repeating in my mind: “What goes up must come down.”
In today’s generation, people are obsessed with the idea of hustling. Do more, do it the hard way, be consistent, sacrifice, be disciplined and never stop. These are the words the “hustle-bros” on social media are preaching about. More often than not, they give problematic advice and deliver it in a way that’s very persuasive and therefore charismatic. While hard work itself is not inherently bad, the culture surrounding it often ignores the structural struggles that individuals experience because of the system. More importantly, there are a lot of individuals who have actually become successful because of hustling. My point comes from understanding that not everyone is equal in opportunities and resources because of how unjust our system is and how unequal everyone’s socioeconomic status is, because these so-called “hustlers” are so harsh in giving advice without realizing the politics behind everything.
On an individual level, hustle culture is undermining the sense of autonomy and the desire for something that authentically feeds your soul. This is where social signaling develops: for you to be seen as someone who belongs in a certain in-group, you have to have what these “hustlers” have in order for you to obtain this sense of belongingness. This is backed by the Social Identity Theory of Tajfel and Turner, which suggests that people boost their self-esteem by belonging to a certain group. As a result, people begin to desire the same markers of success that these figures have, like having a luxury lifestyle, expensive properties, a mindset like theirs and even the same car, believing that emulating such symbols will grant them the same status or sense of belonging. Hustle culture creates a bandwagon of what success should look like and people compel themselves to have what “hustlers” have without realizing the subjectivity of success, because more often than not, the hustlers’ definition of success equates to having multiple cars.
And this is where the issue on a societal level comes from. Car-centric cities like Cebu face challenges such as having too many private cars and inadequate public transportation. The Cebu City Transportation Office shows that 80 percent of automobiles on the street are private and only 10 percent are for public transportation. Hustle culture adds to the traffic congestion that the city has experienced for quite a long time now. And what does this mean for Cebuano people? It means that instead of having the luxury of time that should be intended for other things, you have no choice but to be stuck in traffic. This issue creates a huge ripple effect in our community, such as the lack of public transport to travel from point A to point B. That could’ve been a great opportunity for people to socialize with each other, given that the city lacks third spaces.
If we continue to uphold hustle culture and let it dominate how success is imagined, individuals may find it difficult to discover their genuinely owned identity rather than the socially prescribed identity that we compel ourselves to follow. Likewise, in car-centric cities that prioritize private spaces rather than shared public spaces, individuals are deprived of spontaneous social encounters that make urban life more meaningful. How, then, can people cultivate authentic lives and organic encounters in a system that constantly pushes them to perform, consume and even isolate?