Let us sit down and have a very gentle, eye-rolling conversation about the absolute financial acrobatic display our generation is currently performing. We need to hold an intervention for our collective wallets, because the level of peer pressure we are absorbing from the Instagram timeline has officially passed the legal limit of common sense.

Sometime around 2022, a new religion was born on the internet. It is called the Church of the Soft Life.

According to the high priests and priestesses of this movement otherwise known as lifestyle influencers, human beings were not created to struggle, work hard, or sweat. We were apparently placed on this earth strictly to drink mimosas at 2:00 PM on a Tuesday, wear silk robes that cost a month's rent, and sit in the back of an Uber Ride looking thoughtfully out the window while a soft lo-fi track plays in the background.

And because we are a generation that is collectively tired of the trenches, we threw ourselves into this lifestyle with full speed. But let’s drop the cap for a hot second. The modern "Soft Life" is nothing but a beautifully filtered mirage. We are currently trapped in a hilarious cycle where we are working three different side-hustles, destroying our mental health, and hustling like absolute manic characters just to afford the luxury items required to look like we aren't working at all.

The Luxury Workspace Delusion

Let’s start with the architecture of the modern remote worker, because this is where the comedy truly begins.

Back then, to do your work, you just needed a functional laptop, a plastic chair that doesn't squeak too loudly, and a stable internet connection. But if you watch a "Get Productive With Me" video on TikTok, you will realize that simple setup is now a crime against aesthetics.

Suddenly, to type a basic Excel spreadsheet, the internet says you must have a minimalist oak desk, a dual-screen monitor setup with matching pastel bezels, a mechanical keyboard that clicks with the precise frequency of a rain shower, and a wireless charging pad shaped like a cloud. Oh, and don't forget the candle. You must light a 25,000 Naira scented candle that smells like "Eucalyptus and Executive Rest" before you can open a single work email.

We are spending hundreds of thousands of Naira to build a luxury corporate sanctuary in our bedrooms. You haven't even made profit from your business yet, but your desk setup looks like the headquarters of a Silicon Valley tech startup. You sit down in front of this gorgeous, curated workspace, completely broke, staring at your aesthetic notepad, just to respond to an email that says, "Please find attached." We have turned the simple act of sitting down to work into an expensive lifestyle production.

Working Hard to Look Unemployed

The funniest contradiction of this entire hustle culture rebrand is the actual cost of looking "soft."

To maintain the appearance of someone who is living an effortless, stress-free life, you need a ridiculous amount of capital. You need the matching lounge sets so you look chic while "working from home." You need to order overpriced salads from apps because cooking is considered "hard labor." You need to book weekend staycations at boutique apartments with white curtains just to "reset your nervous system."

Do you see the irony? To fund this continuous soft-life simulation, you cannot just do a regular job. You have to become a premium hustlepreneur. You are managing your 9-to-5, running an e-commerce brand at night, doing freelance consulting on weekends, and actively trading cryptocurrency in the bathroom stalls.

You are working twenty hours a day, your eyes are permanently bloodshot, your caffeine addiction has reached a biblical scale, and your nervous system is vibrating from stress. But the moment you get a 10-minute break, you quickly take a picture of your iced matcha latte next to your MacBook and caption it: "Protecting my peace and choosing soft living." My guy, who are you lying to? You are not living a soft life; you are just a highly decorated corporate laborer who has access to nice filters.

The Tragedy of the Unused Luxury

Let’s talk about the things we buy but are too exhausted to enjoy. This is the quietest ghetto of the modern grind.

Because the algorithm told you that successful baddies spend their Sundays relaxing, you went out of your way to buy a luxury espresso machine that looks like it belongs in an Italian cafe. You bought the premium bath salts, the plush weighted blanket that feels like a hug from an angel, and the designer diffuser that changes colors according to your mood.

But let’s look at your calendar. You are so busy chasing deliverables, jumping from one Zoom call to another, and fighting for your life in the corporate trenches that you don't even have time to touch these things.

Your luxury espresso machine is currently gathering dust in the kitchen because you don't have the 15 minutes required to clean it, so you still end up drinking fast-dissolving three-in-one coffee out of a chipped mug. Your expensive bath salts are sitting unopened on the shelf because you only have exactly five minutes to pour cold water over your head before your next meeting. We have turned our homes into showrooms of luxury comfort that we are too busy, tired, and sleep-deprived to ever utilize. We are literally paying for a lifestyle we don't have the time to live.

Bring Back the Honest Hustle

We need to stop letting these 15-second curated clips give us a low-key financial identity crisis. There is no shame in admitting that life requires a bit of friction. You don't need your entire existence to look like a Pinterest board before you can be successful or content.

Let’s stop spending money we haven't even made yet to look like people who don't work. It is perfectly fine to work out of a cluttered room, to drink water from a regular plastic bottle instead of a 40k aesthetic tumbler, and to wear your old university t-shirt while typing your reports.

The next time you see an influencer posting their morning routine involving a journal, three different types of serums, and a crystal bowl of organic fruit before 7:00 AM, just smile, roll your eyes playfully, and go back to your front. Let them have the pastel mirage. Some of us are perfectly okay with working our regular, slightly messy, un-curated jobs and keeping our money inside our bank accounts where it belongs.