Hustle culture, as a value system emphasizing hard work and struggle, has historically driven individual achievement and social progress, but its lasting effectiveness is facing challenges. The fading of the hustle spirit is the result of multiple factors. To rediscover this spirit, we must strive in many ways, including improving our living environment, creating a positive social atmosphere, optimizing workplace mechanisms, and cultivating healthy family values. Only then can that fighting spirit return to us.
The Significance of Hustle Culture
Hustle culture is not just about achieving personal goals, but also about respecting life. Everyone hopes to achieve something in their field, but the road to success is not smooth. Hustle culture means not backing down in the face of difficulties, and bravely getting back up after a fall. It is this hustle culture that allows us to find motivation at every stage of life.
Will Hustle Culture Disappear?
Internal Consumption and Exhaustion:
The entire society becomes like an overloaded machine, inefficient and wasting resources severely. Individuals become physically and mentally exhausted, creativity is stifled, birth rates and happiness continue to decline, social vitality declines, and a cycle of "low desire" or "negative growth" ensues. At this point, many choose to "lie down" or adopt a "Buddhist-like" attitude, but this is merely a passive resistance to involution, not the end of involution.
"Rigidity and Solidification":
Intensified competition leads to resource allocation favoring the privileged, exacerbating class solidification. New ideas and models are difficult to emerge, social structures become rigid, innovation stagnates, and overall development loses its momentum.
The Ultimate Manifestation of Hustle Culture
A Return to Value Orientation:
Society reflects on and redefines "success" and "value." Education shifts from "exam-oriented education" to "quality education," emphasizing the cultivation of students' independent thinking, creativity, and emotional management abilities; the workplace shifts from a "996" overtime culture to an "efficiency-first, time-respecting" model, with companies focusing more on employees' actual output and creativity; individuals focus more on intrinsic satisfaction and real-life experiences, pursuing a lifestyle that aligns with their own values.
Structural Reforms and Resource Optimization:
Government and related institutional reforms ensure the fair allocation of key social resources such as education, healthcare, and housing, narrowing the wealth gap and providing upward mobility; encouraging diversified economic models and employment choices provides development space for different talents; technological progress is truly used to improve productivity and liberate manpower, allowing people more time for creative and experiential activities.
Awakening of Collective Consciousness and Establishment of Boundaries:
The phenomenon of "lying flat" is rationally examined, forming a new social "potential energy" that forces adjustments to the existing evaluation system and competition rules; "involution" is rationalized and standardized, with moderate competition stimulating potential and promoting progress, based on fairness, value creation, and clear boundaries.
Conclusion:
The dissipation of involution is not a sudden collapse, but the result of the combined effects of multiple social, cultural, and institutional factors. When individuals begin to ask "What is happiness?" rather than "How to surpass others," and when social evaluation standards shift from "outcome-oriented" to "process value," involution will naturally lose its foundation. This process may be lengthy, but cultural awakening and institutional progress have paved the way.