Pushing Pause on Toxic Hustle Culture

The hustle is over-hyped.

You will never hear me brag about giving 110 percent.

First of all, it’s a mathematical impossibility.

Secondly, it’s not healthy.

Of course?I want to do a good job, and?of course?productivity is important. But is it the most important thing? No, not to me.

Don't get me wrong. I understand the value of hard work. I don’t think anyone who’s ever worked with me would say I’m not a hard worker. But as a society,?we glorify the grind so much that we forget the things that matter.

I’ve had to push the pause button quite a bit this month for the sake of my physical and mental wellness. Honestly, taking a step back doesn’t feel great. It feels like defeat. And a little like laziness.

I feel guilty. Even though I know my pause is necessary for my well-being, I’ve internalized these negative feelings from the toxic hustle culture we live in.?

What caused me to push pause was a concussion. And then, no more than a week later, ANOTHER concussion.?

There's no such thing as "just a concussion."

Did you know a concussion is a type of brain injury, and that it can be serious? It can even be deadly when a person experiences a second concussion before the first one has healed—which sometimes leads to brain swelling. Or when someone experiences multiple concussions or even subconcussive impacts over a lifetime.

I couldn’t blame you if you thought concussions were nothing to worry about. It’s what we see in movies and TV shows all the time.

I recently watched Spider-Man: Homecoming. (I know, I’m very behind.) At one point, the hero is told he has a mild concussion, but within a few moments, he’s doing whatever a spider can without any problems at all.?

While fictional characters always seem to heal from concussions right away—some nearly instantly—recovery in real-life can be much slower and messier.?

About 80 to 90 percent of concussions heal within two weeks. For the remaining 10 to 20 percent, recovery can take months or even years. And for some unlucky few, a concussion never fully heals—leaving them with persistent post-concussion symptoms (also known as post-concussion syndrome).

I’m one of the unlucky ones. I’ve been dealing with concussion symptoms since 2011 when a laptop fell from the overhead bin of an airplane onto my head. The additional concussions over the past month left me very much aware of brain injury during Brain Injury Awareness Month, which is now at an end.

It's a strange journey indeed to try to raise awareness about brain injury while one is suffering the effects of such an injury. Pain impedes thoughts. Sentences don’t form obediently. Brain fog obscures the message. And then there’s?aphasia.

What's aphasia?

Many people recently learned this term when Bruce Willis announced he was stepping away from acting because of his diagnosis. Aphasia is a disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate. It can be acquired by a stroke, head injury, brain tumor, or degenerative process. The severity and prognosis of aphasia generally depend on its cause. Temporary episodes of aphasia are also possible as a result of migraine, seizures, or other causes.?

I struggled with aphasia a great deal after my 2011 head injury. I am saddened that Bruce Willis is going through it and that he’s had to walk away from a very successful career. I’m also glad he’s receiving an outpouring of support and encouragement from his fans.?

When my aphasia was at its worst, I’d often mix up related words, such as asking for a bowl when I needed a fork, or saying I was going to put my laundry into the microwave instead of the dryer. I usually didn’t realize I said the wrong word unless someone pointed it out.?

Sometimes, it was like I hit a mental wall while searching for a word, and I couldn’t find my way around it to locate a synonym or continue my thought.?

Well-meaning people would sometimes try to finish my thought for me, offering up a menu of words for me to choose from. But this interrupted my thought process even more, and I found it overwhelming.?

Other people with good intentions tried to make me feel better by normalizing my difficulties. They’d say things like, “Oh, you’re just getting older. It happens to all of us.” But I knew the sudden onset of my language challenges and other cognitive issues was related to the brain injury and not because I’d just turned 40. I felt like I was being dismissed.?

Worse, several people in my life suggested I was faking my symptoms or “milking” the injury for time off work or the ability to work from home once I did go back—which was a special privilege at the time rather than the normality we now know.

My aphasia eventually faded to the point where it’s now episodic—only appearing when I’m under a great deal of stress, over-fatigued, or experiencing a particularly bad migraine. Other symptoms also cleared up similarly, so as long as I manage my stress and workload, my post-concussion syndrome doesn’t generally interfere with my career and life.

But what about when it does??

How do we push pause?

At first, I wondered, "Should I be open about what I'm going through?" I questioned whether people would understand.

For years, I was afraid to talk about my condition. Afraid that people would view me as less competent, less intelligent, less professional,?less than. Even coworkers who knew about my injury didn’t realize the extent of its effects on me—only that I would frequently get migraines.?

(Fact: My head didn’t stop hurting for more than seven years after that 2011 injury. One person suggested I "power through" a particularly bad migraine, not realizing that powering through was my norm.)

The concussions this month have brought back many symptoms that had previously faded to the point where they were easily managed. Fortunately, most people in my life have been very kind and empathetic. But, with the setback, I’ve again experienced impatience from a few people who don’t understand the complexity of this type of injury or the time it takes to heal.?

And people who value the hustle over mental and physical wellness—the ones who humble brag about being workaholics—are the ones who just don’t get it at all.

It’s only in the past year or so that I’ve begun to be open about my experience with PCS and my other disabilities, in a journey to be more authentically myself. I hope that the more people share their experiences, the less stigma will be associated with disability—and the more we'll be able to cancel hustle culture.

Enough with the hustle hype!

If you’re a person who believes in always giving 110 percent—or the mathematically possible but still unrealistic 100 percent—I encourage you to consider what that means.?

If you’re giving all your energy to your career, what aspects of your life are you taking it from? If you expect 100 percent from your team members, what parts of their lives do you want them to neglect?

As the saying goes, we truly never know what someone else is going through. Whether it’s a concussion, aphasia, other disability, or life circumstance that requires a person to push the pause button for a bit, I hope we can give each other the space we need to deal with life when it happens.

Let’s stop glorifying the grind and show some compassion for pushing pause.