They Deceived You When They Said: The Obsession with Work is Your Only Path to Success

SadaNews - A recipe for success, your path to entrepreneurship, tips for quick wealth... If you haven't encountered such enticing content that chases people continuously on social media platforms, you might be one of the fortunate few who have not missed much, and have escaped psychological pressures that form a new crisis added to the crises of what has come to be known as "the social media person."

One of the most prominent characteristics of this content - which evokes human emotions and dreams - is presenting exhaustion as a badge of honor, burnout as proof of ambition, and that success necessarily passes through an inhumane gate.

However, facts and figures - as well as human nature - reveal that this map not only corrupts noble meanings such as diligence, responsibility, and commitment, but it often leads to failure and burnout, rather than achievement and glory.

And to avoid confusion, we need an answer to an important question: What is the dividing line between striving toward necessary ambition and self-destruction chasing the mirage of imagined success?

Between imposed obsession and healthy ambition

Before diving into the heart of the crisis, we must separate four concepts that are often conflated:

Hustle Culture: A social phenomenon that glorifies long working hours and relentless productivity as a banner of honor and the main pathway to success, normalized through social media and entrepreneurship narratives.

Workaholism: A compulsive behavioral addiction originating internally, academically defined as "an uncontrollable internal drive to work constantly, accompanied by negative feelings such as anxiety and guilt when not working."

Burnout: The inevitable result of hustle culture and workaholism, it is a professionally recognized syndrome by the World Health Organization, characterized by physical and mental exhaustion, increased negative feelings toward work, and decreased sense of achievement.

Work Engagement: What we consider the healthy counterpart to the previous three concepts, characterized by high energy, active participation, enjoyment of work, and lacking the compulsive drive that distinguishes workaholism.

The trap: Turning the exception into a devastating culture

It is unobjective to deny that intensive work plays a crucial role at certain stages, such as the foundational phases of entrepreneurial projects, at which point working many hours is a strategic necessity for building momentum to attract investment and clients. This stage is like short-distance races, where exerting maximum energy for a limited time is reasonable to achieve liftoff.

The problem does not lie in the initial race, but the crisis arises from turning the exception into the rule, and failing to transition to a sustainable healthy pace; here, "hustle culture" becomes a trap, where apparent effort becomes an end in itself, regardless of results or efficiency.

Over time, "hustle culture" becomes rooted as an external social system that glorifies long hours as a measure of success. This culture feeds on "workaholism" which is recognized by psychological circles as a behavioral addiction.

Unfortunately, the inevitable result is "burnout", listed in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) by the World Health Organization, which defines it as "a phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed."

The one who is unrooted has neither cut ground nor kept a back

The core idea is that "hustle culture" disregards a fundamental law of nature and production, which is the law of "diminishing returns." It is similar to agricultural land: if it is cultivated continuously, it will be depleted and lose its fertility, leading to a meager harvest. Likewise, human beings need periods of rest that cannot be regarded as luxury; they are, in fact, a condition for renewing energy, creativity, and productivity.

This principle applies even to the most passionate individuals regarding their work. Some may believe that passion is an inexhaustible fuel, but it is more akin to a high-performance race car engine; while this engine can achieve tremendous performance, it generates immense heat. If it does not receive cooling and maintenance periods, it will break down and collapse.

Yes, passion may give you the initial thrust, but rest is what ensures the ability to complete the race. The goal is not to turn off the engine, but to maintain it to operate at maximum efficiency in the long run.

Perhaps we can summarize this meaning in the noble prophetic saying: "The rootless neither cuts ground nor keeps a back"; for one who runs continuously loses both the means and the purpose.

The bill realized: The human and economic cost in numbers

Aside from the humanitarian aspects - which cannot be disregarded - economic analysis reveals that this culture is a major driver of productivity collapse, costing the world immense losses.

The real bleeding of losses seeps from the offices of "burned-out" employees or at least "disengaged" ones. Evidence of the negative cost of this culture is not merely assumptions.

On the human level:

According to a report on burnout issued by "Mental Health UK", 91% of adults in the UK experienced high or severe stress in the past year.

Data from the "Spill" platform - specializing in providing mental health support for employees in companies - for the year 2025 indicates that 81% of Generation Z employees left their jobs for mental health reasons.

John Clifton, CEO of Gallup, commented on a report from his organization: "The lack of work engagement is not just about employee happiness; it is an issue that affects global economic growth."

On the economic level:

A report on global workplace conditions entitled "State of the Global Workplace" published by Gallup estimates that low employee engagement costs the global economy 8.9 trillion dollars annually.

In a joint analysis between the employee recognition platform Workhuman and Gallup, the cost of lost productivity due to burnout alone is estimated at about 322 billion dollars annually worldwide.

According to a joint study between Harvard Business School and Stanford University, companies incur an additional cost of between 125 to 190 billion dollars annually in the United States alone as health care costs related to workplace stress.

Reaction: Redefining success

It seems that this has produced shifts in workforce priorities, as per a survey conducted by Randstad to select a number of priorities; 83% of workers ranked "work-life balance" as a top priority, while "salary" came in second at 82%.

This shift is driven by younger generations who refuse to trade their health for traditional career success, which analysts have described as "not weakness but a logical response to unreasonable expectations in an always-connected work environment."

In this context, workplace experts - based on research from Gallup - indicate that the goal is not to reject hard work but to shift to the concept of "positive engagement", where employees work with energy and enthusiasm without exhausting themselves to burnout.

The new map: Sustainable work models proven by numbers

Emerging from this crisis does not require abandoning ambition but adopting smarter work models, such as:

Smart laziness: Here emerges a concept that seems contradictory; some even wrote an article titled "Forget Hustle Culture, the Lazy Will Win in 2025." Of course, "laziness" in this context is not idleness, but an innate aversion to wasted effort. The "smart lazy worker" succeeds because they follow innate principles of productivity: they seek the shortest paths, refuse to perform repetitive tasks, and prefer building a system for automation, focus on the most important, value rest as a tool for focusing and creativity during actual working hours, and naturally apply the Pareto principle (80/20), focusing their energy on the 20% of tasks that achieve 80% of the results.

The short work week: In the largest global experiment for a four-day work week - coordinated by "4 Day Week Global" - participating companies recorded a 71% decrease in burnout rates, a 39% drop in stress levels, while achieving a 1.4% growth in revenues.

Investing in wellness: A report from the McKinsey Health Institute states that every dollar invested in employee health improvement programs can yield an economic return of between two to four dollars.

The stairs of exhaustion or the elevator of achievement?

True success, as proven by numbers and experiences, does not lie in how much we can endure but in how sustainable we can be. It is the transition to a culture that values the quality of results and the health of the individual achieving them.

In our view, the challenge today is not in pushing people to work longer hours but in creating a humane work environment that helps work smarter, and ironically, productivity will be higher.

The conclusion might simply be in answering this question: Do you prefer to ascend the stairs or take the elevator?