Hustle Culture Hell -

Dear twenty-something,

Is it a rite of passage for those of us born into the internet age? A reckoning with the gnawing dissatisfaction that comes from realizing the well-trodden path we were told to follow might not lead anywhere remarkable? We all like to believe we’ll be special. That we’ll do something special, create something special. But then—far earlier than we ever expected—we reach an age where we begin to suspect that the dreams of being special may have an expiration date.

Enter the side hustle: the shimmering mirage of freedom in all its seductive dimensions. Financial freedom. Time freedom. The freedom to wake up when you please, sip coffee in a sun-drenched kitchen, and leisurely engage in “passive” income streams that roll in while you sleep. It seemed too good to be true. And yet, after being relentlessly bombarded with Finance Bros and Entrepreneur Gurus on YouTube, I found myself believing that, despite the 4 million other people watching the same video, I alone would be the exception—the chosen one who actually makes a profit off this dropshipping empire that exists solely in my imagination. We are living in the age of side hustle hell, and I have been sucked into it, willingly.

I remember after high school, a few girls I knew fell into the pull of pyramid schemes. They peddled lotions, potions, shampoos, and supplements with the fervor of a late-night infomercial. I felt bad for them, knowing they were being exploited, but I also felt a smug sense of superiority. Life might be confusing, but at least I wasn’t selling essential oils on Instagram Live, right? And yet, here I am, years later, having fallen into my own version of this conundrum. I, too, have poured my own meager funds into a half-baked get-rich-quick scheme that has yet to generate anything other than regret. I have made ridiculous, AI-generated TikToks to promote my so-called business. At least the pyramid scheme girls had guts. They put their actual faces on camera, selling their dreams with wide, unflinching smiles. Meanwhile, I cower behind the TikTok voice changer, too ashamed to let anyone know that, despite my best efforts, I am not thriving financially.

I’m 23, and I haven’t started my career. And for some reason, that feels like a profound personal failure. I open my phone and see 16-year-old CEOs, 18-year-old millionaires, and I convince myself that I have irrevocably fumbled my own potential. That I have somehow already missed the golden window of opportunity, and now I’m just another fool scrambling for scraps in the digital marketplace of false promises.

Maybe the real hustle isn’t the side hustle at all. Maybe it’s making peace with the fact that success, real success, isn’t found in algorithm-hacked short-form videos or in the illusion of effortless wealth. Maybe, just maybe, it’s in the quiet resilience of figuring things out—one misstep, one hard lesson, one ridiculous TikTok at a time.

With love,