It’d be a perfect world if the American, capitalist motto of “If you work hard, you’ll be successful” wasn’t dismissive, universal and inapplicable to everyone. It’s great that our youth is constantly reminding each other on social media that money won’t appear out of our pockets without working hard. However, this forgets the necessary self-care people require to stabilize and heal mental health declines, systemic oppression, and physical and mental health illnesses.

Not everyone can work hard and become successful. It is detrimental to constantly push yourself into your work and neglect those spa days and lazy Netflix nights. Those days put aside for your own self-care is laziness. It is necessary to treat your mind and body with consideration. Constant disregard for yourself leads to a drastic crash of your mental health. It becomes a slippery slope down into a pool of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, et cetera, that wouldn’t be easy to recover from.

An immigrant who speaks in broken English, but has a degree in their homeland would still find it incredibly difficult to succeed over someone who was born and accustomed in this country. They can work hard, even harder than their native-born counterpart, and still barely reach that equal. Someone who was born to a poor family in a poor neighborhood will not attain the same resources a financially stable kid who lives in a rich neighborhood would. They wouldn’t receive the same quality education, the same technology to help with their studies, the same access to tutors and the same time dedicated to their studies. A poor student would most likely be imprisoned into working a minimum-wage job to help their family than spending after-school time exercising their passion. These systemic oppressions acknowledge the fact that hard work is put into their success, but the outcome is not equal.

There is often a sense of discrimination when it comes to people with physical and mental disabilities. A physically impaired person is less likely to be hired at a fast food chain because they are less physically able to achieve similar work than an abled person at the same time. A person with mental health issues is less likely to be motivated to seek jobs considering that workplaces don’t necessarily cater or understand much about it. Breakdowns can occur any second and the fear that they may be fired because it can be seen as a “disruption” or “inappropriate” in a workplace is discrimination and discouraging.

This universalism in the idea that working hard can get you anywhere in life is only applicable to people who are non-disabled physically and mentally and already has access to many of the resources they need. It is also important to note that just because one person was able to bounce back from their declined mental health doesn’t mean it’s possible and effortless for everyone. We must take into consideration regarding people’s well-being, and the condescension against people who don’t “work hard” as unrealistic and detrimental rhetoric . It may be meant to motivate, but instead generates damaging effects.