When the topic of money arises at a dinner party or during your casual D2 lunch, you will see that everyone has their priorities straight: “making money”, which is a realistic goal with the skillset we have established in college. Intention and motivation are never absent. The real question is not if you want to make money, but how you make your money. Do you really need to have 50 money making tasks at once - or “side hustles”- and is that really productive, or a steady way for you to become overworked?

I find that the work culture we grew up in, or our social interactions, cultivated this need to overwork – not even towards a specific goal, but rather to prove that you can do as many things as possible at once. Do not get me wrong, I am an approved member of this overworking cult. But can I really call myself productive?

I think overworking is a mechanism we put in place to feel protected or proactive. We use phrases like “in case of” or “better safe than sorry” to justify our multiple tasks. You do not need to be waking up at 5:00 a.m. when you are a full-time college student, going to the gym 7 times a week, having an internship, being president of three SIGs, a social media influencer, and a fanatic of the stock market, while also taking random Coursera or Amazon Web series courses that are not related to your major. It is good to be prepared and have a second option for a task or a scheduling conflict, but do you really need all those hobbies, and are you equally interested in all of them, or are you running a marathon with no finish line?

Now, I do not want to get mistaken for telling you to quit college, but it is okay to take a break every once in a while and pick a few tasks to balance at once rather than 50. If we are not equally passionate about all of them, then we will certainly not be equally productive and successful in them. I would say it is better to pick one battle and stick with it.

But what if you think that all your routines, like your extensive 5-9 a.m. self-care, are healthy? I want to explain why they are not. Consumers have fallen into the trap of companies promoting 10-step Korean skin care, cold plunges, or 500 monthly pilates passes that have created this mass-consumerism and capitalistic model of “self-care” that they have marketed as productive. They have managed to commodify “self-care” and make us feel out of the loop of productivity and success. And if we do not invest in the next best anti-aging or productivity vitamin, we are lost.

According to the “Center a Place for HOPE”, more than a quarter of workers in the United States participate in the gig economy, and they experience high rates of loneliness, financial instability, burnout, and anxiety, besides the obvious lack of self care, leading to even lower standards. How much stress does the stock market cause you? Is that normal for a 20-year-old? Is the satisfaction of your favorite company’s stocks rising slightly worth the stress of them being down for two weeks? It is true that while you try to balance everything, you are losing your friends and family because instead of spending quality time with loved ones, you are picking up side hustles.

You cannot take care of yourself when you put so much pressure on yourself. You are hurting yourself by doing so many things at once, and you believe that by grinding so much constantly, it equates to your worth and value as a person. Trust me, you do not need to be checking LinkedIn 10 times a day and comparing yourself to people who have multiple internships at once because, in reality, you do not know if they are happy with their circumstances. And even if they are happy, why do you believe that if you compare yourself with them and do the same side hustles, you will feel the same degree of happiness and success?

Just sit and reflect for once on what you really love in this life, in comparison to what hobby you picked up just to seem cool or make money. We live in a stagnant economy, and it is important to have financial stability, but I am confident that with one “main hustle” focus and the academic qualifications we possess, we can succeed in life. The more you do, the more it slows you down.