Too much hustling can kill you

When you are young, you feel like you’re invincible. You feel as if you’re on a road to wold domination.

You work for 18-20 hours a day, as told to you by the hustle culture.

You don’t eat healthy food, you don’t exercise, you don’t take a time off, you don’t care about your loved ones. ALL YOU DO IS WORK.

You feel like you can do all those things once you strike gold, and once you make enough money to live the rest of your life. Trust me for most of us that time will never come. You need to take care of yourself starting from today. Not tomorrow.

Trust me, I have been on the same road as you, but as I turn my page on 30, I thought I have to say this to all the 20 year olds out there, make sure to take good care about your self.

There is nothing to gain by risking your life to hustle, and to be rich. What good will come to you if you get diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, or dementia at your 30s or 40s thanks to your unhealthy habits?

You won’t be able to cure yourself even with billion dollars, if you get either of these diseases.

Looking back at my 20s I feel like I was also heading towards a path of destruction, until I decided to change my way when I was 29.

I was hustling, studying and working 18-20 hours a day to become a surgeon, my job as a doctor was stressful, and my health was on the decline.

Two days after my 29th birthday, when I was out for a walk one evening at the Kantale Lake, where I thought to myself, what am I doing?

I decided to give up on my stressful carrier to be a surgeon, I decided to instead,

• Follow a less stressful carrier at the field of Health Informatics
• Eat healthy food, cut down carbs and sugar
• Exercise every day, or a minimum of 5 days a week, 30 minutes or more per day
• Take a good night sleep
• Take more time to lean buddhism

Does that mean I have given up on chasing my ideas? Absolutely not. I have teamed up with a co-founder to make a healthcare solution for hospitals, I started a blog, I’m doing my MSc in health informatics.

But there is one difference, that is I don’t put my work in front of my health.

If you are someone who hustle and work for 18-20 hours a day, feeling burnt out, think to yourself what are you planning to achieve? Think about eating healthy food, exercise, meditation, keeping your mind and body healthy.

90% of startups fail within the first couple of years, and do you expect your hustle can make it to the 10%?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should chill, burn your investor money. My point is that you should work while keeping your mind and body healthy.

I do everything above, stay healthy, and also at the end of the day I’m feeling happy. I work hard, but not hard enough to a point it breaks my mind and body.

Now I feel happier than the days I spent hustling 20 hours a week.

My only wish is I should have started this earlier.