When rest feels wrong: A word on grind culture and decision regret

Do you ever regret doing nothing? Yeah, me too.

I blame two things.

Grind culture and decision regret.

“Grind culture refers to a mindset or lifestyle that glorifies constant hard work, hustle, and productivity—often at the expense of rest, leisure, and personal well-being.” is what ChatGPT describes grind culture as.

Also, “the emotional reaction of wishing you'd chosen differently.” is what ChatGPT describes decision regret as.

These are two things weighing on my mind recently.

Let me throw a scenario at you to help you understand my perspective of it.

You have a day off, the world’s your oyster, but regardless of what you choose to do for the next few hours, you feel a bit of regret and question whether you’re being productive enough with that time.

You feel that… right?

It’s like you have a free day and you don’t want to stuff it up.

You don’t want to get to the end of it and feel like you weren’t productive.

I do this all the time and it shits me.

Even if I KNOW I want to chill and watch a show, some weird sense of guilt washes over me and judges me for doing so. It makes me think I should be doing something more ‘useful’.

Let’s be real, this doesn’t happen when you choose to do a chore or a difficult task, it mainly happens when you feel like you’re being lazy.

It speaks to ‘grind culture’ and the feeling like we HAVE to be productive every minute of every day. That it’s not ok to relax and ‘waste’ a few hours binge watching something.

In reality that stuff is good for us. I know it is because it allows us to reset, to refuel. To come back to whatever it is we are grinding away at and be better at it. With more of a refreshed, positive mindset too.

So whatever choice you make, let’s own it.

I’m speaking to myself here as it applies in a big way to me.

You’re allowed to switch off for a few hours. Hell, do it the whole day.

I have no doubt we all work pretty damn hard so it’s silly to think we feel guilty for having a down day every so often.

I don’t regret typing this article. Nor do I regret taking however long it took me to write it when instead I could have been doing something more useful like saving the world.

Take that grind culture.