Part 2: The Hustle We Worshipped
There’s a look some men wear that isn’t quite exhaustion, but something close. A kind of restless sharpness in the eyes. Alert. Ambitious. Slightly haunted. The look of a man who has learned how to keep moving, even when everything in him is begging for pause.
From Surulere to Surrey, the hustle is one of the few things that travels with us. It speaks every language and wears every accent. You’ll find it in the banker who still picks up freelance gigs on the weekend. In the man driving Uber after his 9-to-5. In the WhatsApp status that says, “sleep is for the weak.” In the father who can’t remember the last time he sat down to eat without checking his email.
This isn’t just ambition. It’s something deeper. Something older. For many Nigerian men, hustle is not just a way of life it is identity, performance, inheritance, protection. It is how you earn your respect. It is how you prove you’re not a failure. And for those in the diaspora, it’s how you justify the leaving.
Because what’s the point of crossing oceans if you’re not shining when you get there?
You begin to believe that if you rest, you’ll lose momentum. That slowing down is disrespectful to everyone who sacrificed for you to be here. You start chasing milestones that aren’t even yours, houses you don’t live in, degrees you don’t need, currency that can’t cure emptiness. The hustle becomes holy. You pray for more of it. You toast to it. You compete through it. And when your body begins to break under it, you keep going. Because how do you say “I’m tired” in a culture that praises struggle as destiny?
It gets dangerous, this kind of hustle. Not because hard work is bad but because it begins to swallow the man whole. You become a provider without a self. A protector who has no protection. You show up for everyone except the person living inside your own chest. You forget what joy feels like unless it’s tied to achievement. And if you’re lucky, something finally gives way…not in public, of course. But in the moments between things. When the meeting ends. When the kids go to sleep. When the car is parked but you can’t bring yourself to go inside.
There are men, plenty of them who’ve achieved everything and still feel empty. Who’ve hit every mark and still feel behind. Because no one told them how to live outside of the grind. No one taught them that their worth isn’t measured in currency or certificates or calls from people asking for “small support.”
But some are learning. Slowly. In their own quiet ways.
A man begins to say “no” to things that don’t serve him. Another blocks the family WhatsApp group for a month to reclaim peace. Someone else takes a full Saturday to do nothing and refuses to apologise for it. One books therapy. Another finally cries in the shower and lets himself feel how heavy it’s all been.
They’re not lazy. They’re not broken. They’re just tired of pretending that being burnt out is a badge of honour.
There is still honour in being a provider. There is still pride in ambition. But the kind of masculinity that demands a man prove his worth through constant depletion? That one needs to be left behind. It’s outdated. It’s violent. And it’s costing too many men their peace, their presence, their very lives.
There is a different kind of wealth, one that isn’t always loud or luxurious. It looks like waking up without dread. It sounds like laughter that isn’t forced. It feels like sitting still without guilt. That wealth is soft, but it is sacred. And more men are beginning to pursue it, even if they don’t yet have the words for it.
This is Part Two of Soft Life, Hard Truths, a series exploring what it means to be a Nigerian man unlearning the performance and stepping into something fuller. Next, we’ll look at what comes after the hustle: gentleness, friendship, joy. The parts of manhood that our fathers were never given language for but that we, perhaps, can reclaim.
Until then, maybe ask yourself this: What have you confused for purpose that is just pressure? And what would you do with your life if rest was not a reward, but a right?
We want to hear from you. Drop a comment below or join the conversation on socials using #SoftLifeHardTruths. Your story might be the one that frees someone else.
