Not Just Sassy on the InsideOur society’s grind culture consciousness
Over the last couple of years I’ve pondered grind culture in several posts. The more I look at it the more I see how very many ways a combo of the corporate grind culture thinking promoted by CEOs and rich people plus Puritanical beliefs about wealth equaling being right with God and poverty equaling lazy and wrong with God are buried deep in our national consciousness.
It’s one of the few places where people on both sides of the political divide hold multiple judgments about others. There’s some difference about one side being willing to help people anyway and one side preferring to leave the sick and poor to die. But both talk about whether people are “deserving” or not and make life coach-style statements about hard work being rewarded and pulling bootstraps, etc.
Once I started seeing it, it began jumping out at me from everywhere. This stuff is SO embedded in our psyches. Having worked a lot of years on clearing all sorts of old beliefs dictating my behavior from childhood, I know it’s hard to let go of those ingrained habits of thinking/behaving. And since the whole country can’t go through the kinds of deep therapeutic release work that help individuals, I’ll admit I don’t have an answer for how we do it. I just know that as we try to overturn the power of billionaires and CEOs we need to address the grind culture they love to impose.
Some examples of how it appears in many aspects of life:
The “Work Ethic”
Our society worships the work ethic and quotes by the hundreds are constantly cited, discussing how hard work and diligence will bring rewards:
- I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it-Thomas Jefferson
- Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No Excuses – Kobe Bryant
- I never took a day off in my 20’s, not one – Bill Gates
- No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American – Anthony Bourdain
- Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard, then succeed on purpose-G.K. Neilson
No account is taken in any of these “encouraging” quotes of the multi ways in which society is organized to make it impossible for more than a few to just work hard and automatically achieve the life they want.
Practices like redlining, racism in general, and not enough support from laws all combine to make it close to impossible for POC to get ahead. They get paid less, are often denied loans & mortgages, etc. But the hard work “ethic” says anyone who hasn’t become financially successful is lazy and undeserving. It’s a horrible catch-22 and applies in many ways also to all women.
The same catch extends on to most people who started off poor. Of course everyone has examples of people who did work hard and lived well but those examples are the exception. The system is simply not built to have everyone make a great living, buy a house, etc. with hard work.
The biggest obstacle comes from rich people and the corporate culture that propagandizes about hard work, etc. They purposely don’t pay living wages for full time work, fail to give decent benefits, try to get people to work as contractors instead of employees so the corporation has NO requirements of benefits or paying into social security, etc.
The rich set it up to suit their greed and then shout “Lazy” at all the people working full time — sometimes with another job as well — but not being paid enough to live comfortably. It’s wage theft and the work ethic b.s. is just made up as an excuse to treat people badly and blame the harm on the victims.
The “Deserving Poor” Myth
Dating back to Victorian times (at least) there is a myth that there are some “deserving” poor people who are disabled or too old to work but everyone else who’s poor is “undeserving” because being poor only happens if you’re lazy and not a good person. Two big problems with those are assumptions are largely ignored, even by “liberals”: (1) a huge number of people are poor because greedy employers/companies want them to work full time or more while not being paid a living wage and (2) a disturbing assumption there’s such a thing as a human who doesn’t deserve to eat and have a roof over their head.
Like all grind culture, the common sayings regarding poverty and being deserving or not are promoted by rich people to divert blame and hostility to poor people instead of everyone realizing the rich people are the ones who create the problems and keep people poor.
For more on deserving poor see https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/worldpoverty/chpt/deserving-poor and https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2020/12/01/the-deserving-vs-the-undeserving-poor-how-do-we-deem-whos-worthy/
In America, Grind Culture Breathing
In America (can’t speak for other countries) most people are taught to breathe incorrectly. The natural rhythm of breathing is to inhale deeply into the abs and then allow the air to fill us up slowly moving up to the clavicle then to exhale beginning at the top and slowly letting the air move out till the abs are emptied. Ideally both inhalation and exhalation should be about the same length. I see holding the abs tight and breathing so tension is created as an outgrowth of a general attitude of grinding and making everything hard.
In this country people are taught to keep their abs sucked in which means they breathe only at the top. And no emphasis is made on paying attention to keeping the two parts even in length. The incorrect breathing habit is stressful for the body and can contribute to feelings of fatigue. Perpetual stress like that can also weaken the immune system.
Some people also develop habits of holding their breath every time something is disturbing until their regular breathing pattern includes not breathing for short spells. This contributes to being tense and uneasy.
The habit of doing the opposite of what’s healthy in breathing extends into a lot of exercise. In yoga we learn the natural breathing pattern in movement is to inhale as you open up or make a move requiring strength and to exhale as you fold or stretch into a move. In gym-type exercise and physical therapy, etc. they teach the opposite. So the majority of instructions about breathing in U.S. “fitness” is to do the opposite of what’s natural and healthy for the body.
Healthy, Relaxed, Rested
In a culture where rich people rule and it suits them to keep everyone else underpaid, overworked, constantly tired and/or sick, etc. it’s a revolutionary act to choose a path where you rest as much as needed, stay calm and peaceful and keep yourself in a good state of health.
Viva la revolution!
#Breathing #Consciousness #DeservingPoorMyth #GrindCulture #HardWork #LazinessMyths #life #mentalHealth #Politics #workEthic
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