Who's Got Time for the Soft Life Era?
You do. Here's a trend making the case against hustle, grind and total work.
A Gentler Story to Tell about the Hard-Working Self
One of my favorite interviewees canceled our first appointment. She was a Gen Z working in the film industry in Atlanta as an audio technician. It’s not easy being a Latina on a predominantly white set. Plus, she worked super long days, so long that she joked with me—in our rescheduled interview—that she was making so much money because she had no time to spend it.
But you know why she rescheduled with me? She didn’t want to miss a paint-and-sip night. That bit of self-care in a fiercely busy professional life was not to be missed.1
While interviewing 47 quarterlife professionals for my most recent book project, I kept running into different narratives about work.
Some wanted to burn it down. Admittedly, this was a rare story, a narrative of annihilation.
Others, if they saw problems in the workplace, tried to fix them. Theirs was a story of amelioration.
But here’s another story people have been telling about their relationship to work:
I’ve been fighting the good fight. But I’ve been hustling for too little pay. I’ve been seeking basic equity. But I’m not being acknowledged. And, you know what? I’m done. I’m done with the forever struggle. I’m ready for my soft life era.
Stop Hanging by Fingernails, Start Your White Toenail Season
Living the soft life era entails a take-care-of-yourself ethic. Avoid pressure. Wear leisure clothes. Sidestep the hustle.
“The theory is simple – live a life of comfort, leisure, and low stress,” writes Business Insider Brianna Holt. “Maybe you dedicate half an hour to your skincare routine, or maybe you take a pilates class twice a week. Perhaps you stay in your bathrobe all day until you finally have to step outside.”
Variations on the soft-life theme abound: coquette, cozy cardio, skinminimalism, and white toenail season. In the past year, soft-life TikToks have taken off, a trend originating with Nigerian influencers, to the tune of a 3 billion views. Although white women have recently glommed onto the trend, the movement has been amplified by African American women, thanks to this post. And soft living isn’t just for women. Arguably, quiet vacationing and public napping are gender-inclusive cousins of these movements.
The trend, which responds in significant part to the trauma of racism, critiques the notion that every single person has to be Strong and Powerful and Resilient. Recently, Anne Helen Peterson interviewed Soraya Chemaly about The Resilience Myth, which offers a cultural critique of this individualism: “The danger of thinking that you and you alone are responsible for adapting positively to crisis — and today that means crises after crisis after crisis — is that you will almost certainly fail to meet your own expectations.”
Why I Think Soft Living Matters
All my soft-living research has probably confused the algorithmic demons assigned me by Google. Wait, whut? Aren’t you a Gen X cis-gender white guy? Whatcha doin’ looking at facial care sites?
(Pretty sure that’s how algorithms sound when they talk.)
Not surprisingly, opponents of the soft life movement abound. I summarize these critiques in terms of giving in or giving up.
Some critics think the movement is all about giving in. To pamper yourself is to be colonized by consumer capitalism. You’re just buying a lot of goopy products and then rationalizing it by calling it soft living.
Other critics think the movement is all about giving up. It’s defeatist, in other words. You’re giving up on the fight for justice and equity.
Honestly, these are the sorts of critique that my academic training inclines me towards. But my research has also put me in conversation with a white Millennial professional whose story complicated my attitude toward soft living. Her career, she told me, had collapsed after some ninja-level grinding. So, she tried to find meaning outside of work through political engagement. But even there, the intensity got to be too much. Today, she’s accepted her soft(er) life era, sort of:
I get her ambivalence. I bet there are strands within the larger movement of soft living that deserve ambivalence. But I feel sympathy for the soft life era, in part, because I see the need for sabbath. Maybe my friend’s ambivalence represents a vital moment in the oscillation between resistance and rest.
The Hope You Need in Every Era of Work and Life
If soft living becomes an excuse for luxury shopping, the movement’s not so great. But if it creates a sabbath cadence counter to the drumbeat of total work, please, by all means, paint your toenails white.
But whether you’re in a zone of heavy work right now, or an era of soft living, you know what virtue you need for both? Hope. Nothing kills resistance or rest quicker than despair. Nothing animates resistance and rest better than hope.
It’s easy to dismiss hope as as a cheap adjective, airbrushing out the bitter parts of existence. But a few months ago at the Festival of Faith & Writing, I heard Jemar Tisby take a question about how he was avoiding despair in this political season. Tisby responded, in effect, that he was hopeful, because what alternative do we have?
The same goes for the workplace as it does in the broader society. When you’re showing empathy to people who mistreat you, when you’re showing respect in the face of contempt, when you’re advocating for the overlooked, you’re not treating hope like an optimistic gloss. Nope. For you, hope’s a verb. (Right on, I say.)
A friend of mine texted me recently to say that maybe we need more than one kind of hope at work. “Maybe there is time for a soft hope that focuses on small things for when you don’t have the strength for big hope. And maybe there is a big hope that is more like a warrior for when you have the strength to work on big things.”
As you mode/switch between resistance and rest, take care to hope.
LWYW
So, where are you today at work? Are you in resistance mode? Are you resting mode? Either way, Hannah’s got some listen-while-you-work to sustain your mode with a mood.
The Book’s about to Drop
My book Digital Overwhelm’s about to arrive in this here world. The editors at Cascade say, 2 weeks. But I’ll let you know when you can get your copy. For now, here’s a teaser ripped off an Instagram post. (So, ya know, don’t actually “slide to description” here.)
I have changed the identifying details of this essentially true story, because this interviewee had concerns about anonymity in our interview.