Keep grinding, keep working, keep growing. Rise to the next level. Don’t settle. No days off. Never quit. Let’s go!

We are bombarded relentlessly with this mantra of constant work and achievement. Every CEO and entrepreneur has some version of the ethos of success. Instagram is filled with people who are selling themselves as “killing it”, usually posing in front of an expensive car or home or some exotic location where they are making billions. How much of this is real and how much is posed to sell us some product such as a self-help book or online seminar or retreat? That isn’t the question because who knows? The real question is, what are we all supposed to be working so hard to achieve?

Money is the obvious yet crass answer. Most people want to have the idea that they are working for some higher purpose but much of this seems to be work for the sake of work, to be seen as working but not thinking too much about the actual goal or end product.

I had a conversation with Erin Griffin, who reports on technology issues for the New York Times and other publications, as a guest on The Working Experience Podcast and she wondered about all this endless work and what it actually produces. Marissa Mayer, formerly an executive at Yahoo, wrote a famous (or maybe infamous) memo about working 120 hours a week and regulating bathroom breaks etc. to maximize time. There is the 9–9–6 idea of the work week (working 9 to 9, 6 days a week). There is nothing wrong with working hard but it seems to have become a fetish, an endless competition. What is not mentioned is what these people are actually doing. Developing a new app to get food delivered to your house? A new video game? A faster way to order clothes or book a flight? If someone is researching a cure for cancer and working long hours to do that they deserve all the credit in the world. But are we supposed to emulate people who work hard just for the sake of working? What is the goal? Is it a worthy one? Do these people working 80 to 100 hours a week even consider that? Elizabeth Holmes of the Thanatos blood company scandal worked very hard but she ended up putting people’s lives at risk. Is that a goal worthy of all that hard work?

I’m from Massachusetts so it is impossible to escape all the New England Patriot’s noise. Bill Belichick is the focal point of their work ethic (and the pioneer of the sleeveless hoodie). They (fans, sports pundits etc.) espouse the “Patriot Way” of “No Days Off”, the mindset of endless work and never being satisfied. And granted the Patriots are very successful and it seems very important and all that but they are playing football games, not curing a genetic disease. Do the rest of us have to buy in to all of it?

Why do people who supposedly work so hard need to tell the rest of the world about it? Why do people have to relentlessly advertise their supposed success on social media and try to sell it to the rest of us? Why can’t they just work hard and achieve what they want in life. If they feel the need for constant attention and validation, there must be something lacking. Maybe the goal is lacking. So no matter how hard they work they will never be happy and fulfilled.

Maybe consider the following:

1. Not everything is super-important. Most things, such as Door Dash and Uber, are not that important at all.

2. If working 80 hours a week is not your thing, don’t feel bad. Maybe you just want to live your life and enjoy yourself and that is fine.

3. If you are working hard at something, don’t advertise it. If the goal is worthy you don’t have to.

4. Do not trust people who need to tell everyone how hard they are working; they probably aren’t.

5. Be grateful.

6. If you are grateful, you will be satisfied.

I think I’ll kick back and watch some Netflix. Take it care my friends; don’t work so hard and don’t worry about it. TWE.