The "hustle culture" has destroyed relaxation, taking hobbies with them. People try to "monetize" all sorts of garbage which is why we have so many YouTube channels, TikToks and Instagram "influencers". They've been force-fed the Protestant Work Ethic and have fallen into the pit of believing it to be true.
> Has the financial situation forced everyone into always looking for a side hustle or way to 'escape the rat race'?
Yes. In my conversations with people in their 20s, they have no kind of job security that older people have (I'm in my 60s). As a result, most are quite jaded about what kind of future they will have and for many of them the idea of house with family (spouse & children) is economically impossible. Turning everything into a side-job or side-hustle is what they think is necessary for survival. Employee wages since 1980 have barely kept up with inflation, unskilled workers have fallen far behind. Executive wages have captured all of the increases in productivity since 1980.
https://www.epi.org/blog/wages-for-the-top-1-skyrocketed-160...
This chart shows the gap starting in 1973:
https://i.imgur.com/XX8cjIC.jpeg
The year of the Oil Embargo. People of my generation remember this as "when our mothers had to get a job outside the house". My parent's generation remembers that year as when they had to start pumping gas for themselves (almost all gas stations were "full service" prior to the Oil Embargo). In accounting & business law classes, that was the year that several court cases ruled that "directors have a fiduciary duty to shareholders".
> According to Weber (1904, 1905), it was John Calvin who introduced the theological doctrines which combined with those of Martin Luther to form a significant new attitude toward work. Calvin was a French theologian whose concept of predestination was revolutionary. Central to Calvinist belief was the Elect, those persons chosen by God to inherit eternal life. All other people were damned and nothing could change that since God was unchanging. While it was impossible to know for certain whether a person was one of the Elect, one could have a sense of it based on his own personal encounters with God. Outwardly the only evidence was in the person's daily life and deeds, and success in one's worldly endeavors was a sign of possible inclusion as one of the Elect. A person who was indifferent and displayed idleness was most certainly one of the damned, but a person who was active, austere, and hard-working gave evidence to himself and to others that he was one of God's chosen ones (Tilgher, 1930).
> Calvin taught that all men must work, even the rich, because to work was the will of God. It was the duty of men to serve as God's instruments here on earth, to reshape the world in the fashion of the Kingdom of God, and to become a part of the continuing process of His creation (Braude, 1975). Men were not to lust after wealth, possessions, or easy living, but were to reinvest the profits of their labor into financing further ventures. Earnings were thus to be reinvested over and over again, ad infinitum, or to the end of time (Lipset, 1990). Using profits to help others rise from a lessor level of subsistence violated God's will since persons could only demonstrate that they were among the Elect through their own labor (Lipset, 1990).
> Selection of an occupation and pursuing it to achieve the greatest profit possible was considered by Calvinists to be a religious duty. Not only condoning, but encouraging the pursuit of unlimited profit was a radical departure from the Christian beliefs of the middle ages. In addition, unlike Luther, Calvin considered it appropriate to seek an occupation which would provide the greatest earnings possible. If that meant abandoning the family trade or profession, the change was not only allowed, but it was considered to be one's religious duty (Tilgher, 1930).
http://workethic.coe.uga.edu/hpro.html
The principle behind predestination was that before you were born, God decided whether you were going to Heaven or not. The "Elect" would be going to Heaven. Those who were not "elected" were damned (in the Biblical sense) to Hell. If you were lazy and screwed off (uh oh! that's me!), you would lose your place in the Elect, thus becoming damned (in the Biblical sense).
> The phrase was initially coined in 1904–1905 by Max Weber in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber asserted that Protestant ethics and values, along with the Calvinist doctrines of asceticism and predestination, enabled the rise and spread of capitalism. It is one of the most influential and cited books in sociology, although the thesis presented has been controversial since its release.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
He embedded Protestantism in his theory because he wanted some reason why the countries of Northern Europe (like England, Netherlands & Germany) were wealthier than the countries of Southern Europe (like Italy & Spain).
You see the Protestant Work Ethic all over the place in America. Such as in the utter hatred for social safety nets by one political side - because those people are already damned to Hell and it is violating God's Will by preventing them from starving to death. Another place you see it is in the total lack of vacations. Even people who get paid time off refuse to take it because they're scared.
For hobbies, I read books and play music. While it is possible to make some money, I won't. I do it for my own pleasure. Trying to turn them into something like blogs or YouTube channels would be too much effort. Then it becomes a job. And then I would need some totally different hobby to relax.
There is a parable usually titled "the businessman and the fisherman". It is a beautiful parable of the conflict between the Protestant Work Ethic and personal goals (I picked the first result from a google search). It starts:
> One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf. He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the prospect of catching a fish.
> About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach, trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family. "You aren't going to catch many fish that way," said the businessman to the fisherman.
> "You should be working rather than lying on the beach!"
https://thestorytellers.com/the-businessman-and-the-fisherma...
I won't spoil the ending, but I think the vast majority of readers of HN have encountered this parable before.