The "soft life" myth: why chasing ease won't make you happy
Why we must shift from external comforts to internal fulfillment for a richer, more meaningful life
Open any social media app, and you’ll find women peddling the idea of a soft life. It’s a fantasy wrapped in warm neutrals and quiet luxury — think champagne glasses, designer bags, expensive skincare, and first-class flights. Their captions whisper promises of ease:
"Luxury is your birthright."
"What’s meant for you will simply find you."
"You deserve to manifest a life of abundance."
I get it.
As a recovering perfectionist and over-functioning person, this is appealing. After years of pushing myself — overachieving, overcommitting, overextending — I remember asking myself a few years ago, “Why am I working so hard? I am exhausted and I have no desire to continue climbing the corporate ladder.”
"Maybe I just need to live a soft life."
I dipped my toes in it. And then I felt worse — because “letting things flow” didn’t magically fix anything. Instead of feeling at peace, I felt restless. The soft life promises ease but all it gives you is emptiness.
I didn’t need to do less — I needed to do the right things. It wasn’t just that I was working too hard. I was working hard on all the wrong things.
The problem wasn’t effort. The problem was misalignment.
When you’re a purpose-driven person with lofty goals, the soft life is a trap — not because rest, ease, or pleasure are bad, but because the version of ease it sells is an illusion.
It claims that the less you do, the happier you’ll be. That struggle is inherently wrong. That true fulfillment comes from removing responsibility, minimizing effort, and rejecting ambition.
But for someone with drive, vision, and deep purpose, this isn't liberation — it's spiritual numbing and bypassing. People like us have an abundance of energy and goodness to share with the world — and that requires focused, purposeful effort.
Avoiding challenge doesn’t create ease; it creates stagnation. Growth, mastery, and impact require discomfort. The idea that anything that requires effort is misaligned keeps you from pushing through the necessary friction that comes with building something meaningful.
True freedom isn’t about opting out — it’s about choosing wisely. The soft life frames work as the enemy, but work isn’t the problem — working on the wrong things is. Purpose-driven people don’t need to escape effort; they need to direct it toward something that energizes them instead of depletes them.
Ease isn’t found in absence, but in alignment. The soft life presents an external vision of ease — luxury, wealth, and leisure. But true ease isn’t about what’s around you; it’s about what’s within you. When you’re aligned, your work doesn’t feel like suffering. You’re still expending energy, but it’s the kind that fuels you rather than drains you.
From hustle culture —> soft life: the perfect rebrand
The 2010s were the “girl boss” era — we embraced hustling, leaning in, and “having it all.”
When the pandemic rolled around 5 years ago, a lot of us questioned what we were hustling towards. So many of us realized how burnt out and tired we were. Self-care and “wellness” became more mainstream — it seems like everyone is in their wellness era now.
And that’s not a bad thing. We are collectively exhausted by the demands on our time and attention, and we are looking for ways out.
But then, of course, the system did what it always does: it monetized our exhaustion.
Brands, influencers, and luxury wellness gurus turned rest into aesthetic aspiration. The pursuit of balance and peace became just another performance — one that conveniently requires expensive candles, $200 facials, and silk pajamas.
What started as a genuine call for slowing down morphed into a highly curated, highly profitable lifestyle:
Self-care became a luxury product. The simple act of resting was repackaged as something that required a specific look — a $70 body oil, an influencer-approved morning routine, a vacation to Tulum.
Wellness became a brand identity. Suddenly, living a soft life meant more than just resting — it meant embodying a certain aesthetic of wealth, leisure, and detachment from struggle.
Ease became another status symbol. The people selling this lifestyle weren’t just well-rested — they were rich. They weren’t rejecting hustle culture; they had already made their money.
And so, instead of breaking free from unrealistic expectations, we replaced one impossible ideal (always hustling) with another (always at ease).
For those of us who don’t have generational wealth, a trust fund, or a passive-income safety net, the soft life is not freedom. It is just another impossible standard to measure ourselves against.
The privilege problem: the soft life ignores reality
At its core, the soft life is sold as a rejection of hustle culture — but for most people, working less isn’t a choice, it’s a privilege. The people promoting this lifestyle often have financial security through generational wealth, high-earning partners, or past success. Their ease is backed by money — something the average person can’t just manifest.
Rest isn’t equally accessible. Low-income workers, single parents, and first-generation wealth builders can’t simply “do less” without consequences. Yet, soft life messaging erases these realities, framing burnout as a personal failure instead of a structural issue.
Rather than challenging why we’re so exhausted — structural issues and personal misalignment — the soft life offers a privatized solution: buy your way into ease. It doesn’t dismantle grind culture; it just sells a new, luxury-branded version of success.
The soft life is a false solution for burnout
The soft life promises that easing up on our responsibilities will help us feel better, but it overlooks the root cause of burnout: misalignment. The idea that working less can cure exhaustion is oversimplified — it’s not about working too much. It’s about working on things that drain us without fulfilling our deeper needs or values.
When we chase ease without addressing the true source of our fatigue, we remain stuck. Real recovery comes from aligning our daily actions with our purpose, not just stepping away from effort altogether. True rest doesn’t mean doing less, it means doing the right things — activities that nourish and energize us, instead of depleting us.
The aligned life is the path to ease
An aligned life isn’t about perfect balance or constant rest. It’s about making conscious choices that allow you to bring your full energy to what matters most, while being intentional about rest and recovery. True ease comes from living authentically, not from conforming to an unattainable fantasy of effortless luxury.
And also, I want to emphasize that hard work is still a virtue! The difference is that when you align your efforts with your core values, that work feels purposeful. It doesn’t become draining — it becomes energizing. When you’re working on the right things, hard work no longer feels like a burden, but a way to move closer to the life you truly want.
Thank you for taking the time to read this! If you found this to be valuable, I invite you to:
Reflect on ways you can cultivate more alignment in your life
Consider where you might be chasing empty promises of ease
Leave a comment re: what resonated for you
Share this with a friend who could benefit from these insights
With gratitude,
Omika