Resisting the Grind

Avoiding the trap of grind culture

So many people are sick and tired of grind culture.

Constantly chasing the things that society tells us we should want, constantly feeling the need to achieve the arbitrary goals that society deems respectable, the relentless pursuit of money and experiences, and constantly feeling that we are inadequate in comparison to others. The glorification of ‘The Grind’ by online performance gurus turns life into a mechanistic process of optimisation - robbing life of its natural vitality.

If we’re caught up in grind culture it’s hard to stop to question why we are chasing these things, and why we are setting our sights according to the desires of others.

In his book "The Burnout Society", contemporary philosopher Byung-Chul Han looks at how modern culture's emphasis on constant productivity and self-optimisation leads to burnout and psychological disorders. Han argues that modern society has transitioned from a "disciplinary society" characterised by prohibitions and regulations to an "achievement society" where we are driven by the grind - the need to achieve and excel at life. This leads to self-exploitation, as we become both the perpetrators and victims of the grind.

"The achievement-subject competes with itself; it succumbs to the destructive compulsion to outdo itself over and over, to jump over its own shadow."

- Byung-Chul Han

The relentless pursuit of optimal lives diminishes our capacity for deep reflection and creativity. Instead of "deep attention," which allows for immersive reflection, we are compelled towards "hyperattention", rapidly shifting between tasks and information sources with little time for the contemplative activities essential for personal development.

We should reject the grind! Don’t crush your goals, and don’t copy the morning routines of the super-successful. Exercising and striving for good health is emancipation, not enslavement to the grind. Exercising and caring for our health shouldn’t be treated as a grind, if we see it that way it’s just another aspect of life where we’ve relinquished control and given in to the forces of social conformity.

Instead, we need to reclaim our self-sovereignty by learning to love our health rituals, protecting them as a sacred practice, and guarding them from the corruptive forces of grind culture. Our workouts can be a sanctuary from the grind, a time for restorative self-care, not another self-imposed checkbox activity in the perpetual race for high performance.

By treating our workouts as a groove, rather than a grind, we can learn to love them and not loathe them.