Manifesto Item 2

​Item 2 is clearly a direct reference to Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey that I had listened to right before working out this manifesto. When you own a business, it's easy to let that business absolutely take over your life. When you're trying to MAKE MONEY, it's also easy to think that if I just work really, really hard for a while, I'll go viral, it'll pay off, and everything will be fine.

Also, grind culture is really prevalent in small businesses or side hustles or whatever you want to call it. I see and have seen the glorification of getting up at 4 am to get some work in, get yourself and possibly others ready for the day, then bust out a full day of work (that may or may not be related to said small business), do more side hustle work on lunch hours, take a few hours in the evening off to be with your family whatever that may look like, then put in a few more hours at the end of the evening before bed, get maybe 6 hours of sleep, then get up and do it all over again.

That feels like a REALLY unsustainable way to live.

I know that not everyone has the good fortune to not work or be able to quit their job to pursue a small business or whatever else. And I'm also not saying it's wrong to work hard for what you want.

I think the problem lies in the idea that this is the ONLY way or the BEST way. I've had seasons where I've woken up early to write or whatnot, but it's not sustainable long-term for me. When I was working daycare 50 hours a week, I didn't have much left in the tank at ANY point during the day to meaningfully put time into my business. I was SO TIRED. ALL THE TIME.
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In the back of my head, I hoped that I would find something that would go viral and be an instant success and everything would be okay. I could stop daycare, focus on this full time, my husband could quit his job, we could buy a yacht and live our life traveling the world, and all kinds of other ridiculous dreams. It does feel a bit small business countercultural to resist the grind, but I think it's important for me to do so.