Everyone Wasn’t Made to Hustle

A Prose Poem/Rant

Every other day, there’s a post sent to my LinkedIn feed telling me I must “have more than one income stream” in order to be successful. If I want to increase my income by $10K, I should, “connect more on social media, and build a brand.” The movers and thinkers are too busy moving and thinking, and I can’t get anyone to stop and hear what I’m saying.

Life is a rat race.
Powerful voices are buried
amongst the noise.
It’s success purgatory,
and the only way to land
your dream job is to
jump through every hoop
thrown at you at 100 mph.

I am covered in shitty articles, up to my neck in “This isn’t what we’re looking for, but better luck next time” and the world is a spinning shit-bucket waiting for a cleansing only the strong can provide. I am losing strength.

How can I, in my exhausted state, be expected to hustle more? Whatever happened to one’s work speaking for them? Whatever happened to authenticity and vulnerability luring people in? There are so many look-alikes prancing around the literary industry, I have no clue where one stops and the other begins.

Influencers share their highs,
deny their lows, and request
immediate funds for the
video you just watched you
clicked on a whim.

This is the world in which
we live. It is a hustle culture,
and everyone’s trying to
out-hustle the other.
And for what?
Some shit you can’t take
to the grave with you?

I had a conversation with a journalist friend of mine who says he’s so tired of all the work he has to do in order to stay above water. Why are people with REAL talent drowning in “the sea of same”, pigeon-holed to what’s hot, trendy, and new, and if they even think about pivoting away from the metric, they’re given their walking papers? From where did this bottomless pit of pithy perturbation originate? Who signed the approval papers? I need to speak to their manager.

I’m not here for the hustle,
I’m here for the art.
If that stunts my potential
to fulfill my dream, I’ll
take those odds.

I’d rather share what’s in
my heart than to
cookie cutter my words
only to have some top-notch
editor pass them off as
suitable enough to catapult
their brand.

I’ve got my own voice,
and I’m using it.

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Originally published on Medium.