Normal never felt normal to me
Before the pandemic our vision of normal may not have been the normal that we were dreaming about all along. So, when the pandemic started to wane and I kept hearing people wanting to get back to some semblance of normal, I was left wondering what part of normal they were so anxious to get back to. The normal that I remember felt like grind culture. Grind culture is this ideology that the more hours we work, the faster our dreams will come true. Whether it’s the house we always wanted, the job, the business, or the money, if we just keep grinding, we will eventually attain the level of success that we have always dreamed about. We see grind culture everywhere. If you are connected to social media or have any connection to pop culture, you witness it on your favorite influencer’s business page or you hear it in hip hop culture about the hustle and/or the grind. This striving for material success has even been justified as it’s aligned with one’s ability to take care of one’s family and friends. I’m not sure how or when this idea of grind culture evolved, but its roots can be experienced in children folklore as well.
My daughter’s paternal grandmother bought her a children’s book about John Henry. John Henry is “the steel driving man” who worked so hard that he died from the stress of working with a hammer in his hand. This story is American folklore, and John Henry is a symbol of the hard…
