Laurie Santos, professor of psychology at Yale University, offers many scientifically proven steps for boosting happiness in her popular course,. This includes participating in small acts of kindness and prioritising social connection, both of which centre community wellness.
“As someone who studies happiness, it's great to see that more people are focusing on wellness and wellbeing. But I think that we want to do that, not in this aspirational way where it's something weto do, but that it's something that we really are doing for good reasons,” she says.
Laurie notes that the concerning part of the “that girl” messaging is that the aesthetically-inclined wellness trend tends to not come with a lot of acceptance. “We feel like we have to be ‘that girl’, that we have to be doing something,” she says. The pandemic has caused many people to reconsider their own participation in hustle culture, Laurie explains, but focusing more on our wellbeing should always come with the goal of being patient with ourselves.
This past year may have marked the death of the girlboss as we know it, but the emphasis on productivity and individualism to the point of self-absorption is far from over. Instead of hustling to be CEOs, we’re hustling to be the most optimised version of ourselves under the guise of being “that girl”. But this hasn’t addressed the core issue: the hustle itself.
As long as we’re constantly striving to achieve unrealistic ideals and treating ourselves as projects, the capitalistic mentality remains and
Ew