We All Have The Same 24 Hours...Or Do We?

I'm sure you've heard this adage.

It's usually something along the lines of "We all have the same 24 hours, how are you using yours to do all the amazing things?" and often in comparison to someone whose achievements are extraordinary, like a Beyoncé or Steve Jobs.

And on its surface, it'd be fair to say that by the laws of relativity or motion or conservation of energy...yeah, all of us dwelling on Earth in the year 2024 are subject to the same measurement of 24 hours in a day.

But is that really the same as a level playing field?

Our Starting Lines

One of the insidious ways that hustle culture grabs hold of us is through exactly these kinds of aphorisms. When some internet guru barks at you that you simply aren't doing enough with that "same" 24 hours you have, it's easy to slip into a pattern where we think the answer is simply to go faster or harder or do more in the name of achievement as if it's simply a matter of effort.

The problem with effort as a metric is that it's looking at a single individual's input into a challenge, whether it be perfect attendance in school or a career-defining project.

But it isn't looking whatsoever at the systems and circumstances that surround that person and how that equips them to succeed...or prevents them from doing so.

You may have seen this video before. And its imperfect and oversimplified in many ways, but what it does do is illustrate one thing very clearly: our starting lines are not equal. Not by a long shot.

The person who had to overcome profound financial, social, or societal inequity is not given the same starting line, so their 24 hours is very different.

A person with a chronic illness has a different 24 hours than a healthy person. A neurotypical person has a different 24 hours than someone neurodivergent. A single parent juggling multiple jobs has a different 24 hours than the executive with a nanny and a personal chef.

The Difference Between Advantage and Hardship

Whenever someone broaches the topic of "privilege" on the internet, there is inevitably a flood of people resentful of the entire dialogue, hopping into the comments to yell that they didn't have it easy, had nothing handed to them, and did it all themselves.

Aside from the argument about "self-made" (a fallacy which we'll talk about in the next issue), there's a fundamental disconnect here between the idea of privilege as some kind of magic, intentional cheat code or shortcut and the idea that privilege cannot and does not include ever encountering hardship. Which is...not the case.

The idea of privilege in this context is simply that some people have advantages—usually unearned, often fueled unconscious and systemic ones—that others do not. Some of those are overt, like being born into a wealthy family. Others are varying degrees of less obvious, like dealing with health-related issues or the embedded imbalance of systems that are based on inequity in design like patriarchy or white supremacy.

The impact of advantages and hardships is very different based on the context, too; being a single parent in a fantastic, lucrative corporate culture is so very different and likely interferes less with your career trajectory than being a single parent when you're working three minimum wage jobs to try to keep afloat and can't seem to break out of that cycle.

Privilege and advantage and hardship are relative, but they are real. And the roots of those things are at the very heart of why we do not all have the same 24 hours whatsoever.

Defining Your Own 24 Hours

The reason I'm on a crusade to help us all disconnect our identities from our our careers is threefold:

1. Far too many people have spent most of their professional life steeped in imposter syndrome and believing they can never possibly be or do enough because
2. That rat race has no end; the finish line and goal posts will always move and hustle culture will tell you that not only is that true but that it's desirable because it keeps you motivated
3. Those two truths are responsible for an awful lot of stress, mental health crises, and generations of human beings feeling like the only thing that makes them worthy is how much they produce or achieve.

Which is seriously messed up.

That means our quest needs to be to reject the idea that we all have the same 24 hours and instead work to define our own version of 24 hours that will allow us to reach the end of the journey and believe we spent our days well.

Some days, that might mean just getting out of bed and getting a shower. Trust me, I've had plenty of days when that in itself is a massive accomplishment.

Other days, that might mean spending more time with our family and friends. Others still might be writing the first words of that novel (looking at you, Naslund) or PR-ing that deadlift or taking a walk in the woods with your dog. Some days the 24 hours might be full and busy. Others they might be quiet and still. All of those are valid choices.

The circumstances around each 24 hours we have are deeply individual. And when we look back over our shoulder at our lives and careers, we will not be measuring whether we kept up with Bey or Steve. We will not be wondering whether that internet guru would approve of our "hustle" on his podcast.

We will be asking ourselves whether those days were lived. Whether we did the best we could with what we had. Whether we used some of our time to leave people and the world better than we found it. Whether we can look ourselves in the mirror and love the person looking back.

So sure, the clock on my desk ticks at the same pace as yours.

But our 24 hours are not the same.

And only when we recognize when that's a problem and when that's a beautiful thing can we truly work to fight for equity, dismantle the BS around "effort" as a great equalizer, and kick hustle culture to the curb once and for all.

The Courageous Career is all about helping humans decouple their work from their self-worth. We tackle imposter syndrome, dismantle hustle culture, and celebrate building our careers on our own terms. Subscribe or share this issue with a friend!