Keeping up with Johannesburg’s hustle culture can be a psychological feat

by Bontle Malowa | Dec 15, 2025 | Indepth2025

Would you sacrifice your sleep for a chance at success? In Johannesburg, this is more than just something to think about—it’s something many people live with every single day. 

• The culture of constant work and hustling wears down people, especially young workers striving to succeed. This leads to chronic anxiety and exhaustion that is often hidden beneath the surface.
• Powerful stories of individuals like street vendor Ausi Nandi Nkosi, Uber driver Siya Zwide, and young professional Lerato Kopano* reveal a side of Johannesburg often left unseen.
• What looks like strength on the surface often hides a much more vulnerable reality and values mental health, allowing time for rest, and nurturing genuine human connections.

According to Professor Nicky Falkof, in media representations and popular cultures of the global North, cities like Johannesburg are often framed as places to flee from rather than to embrace. “They are depicted as hubs of “immigrants, drugs, violence, poverty, disease, and environmental crises, stoking the anxieties of citizens in more developed nations” said Falkof.

Yet within South Africa’s own imagination, Egoli — the City of Gold — glows differently. The nostalgia of Johannesburg is embedded in the movies we watch, the songs we sing, the stories we tell. Egoli is a city of wealth, success, and luxury; a place where the promise of building something from nothing feels tangible.

The media has long shaped this image. From soap operas like Generations and Isidingo to films like Kedibone, and in headlines celebrating business moguls and breakout stars, Johannesburg is consistently portrayed as a land of opportunity — a city where every main character has a dream and a reason to fight.

Yet the same media also warns of danger: fast money, fast burnout, and an even faster descent. This contradiction forms the city’s pulse: ambition wrapped in fear. You start to walk faster, keep your shoulders tight, say less, and always stay alert. You build a shield around yourself against everything unknown.

Fear captures one part of the experience, but anxiety may be more precise. Anxiety in Johannesburg doesn’t always show up as panic. At times, it hides behind a hectic schedule and nonstop productivity. It’s the feeling of waking up before the sun even rises, pushing yourself to chase a version of success that might no longer feel real or meaningful.

The city that demands your soul 

By 5am in the morning, the streets are already congested with minibuses and delivery vans. At the Bree taxi rank, merchants look for a place for their trade early in the morning. The weak sunlight was barely pushing through a haze of exhaust fumes when I met Ausi Nandi Nkosi. She was dressed in a bright doek (headscarf) and a faded Orlando Pirates T-shirt, already frying vetkoek on a makeshift charcoal stove balanced on bricks.

Nkosi, who is nearly 50 years old, has lived through it all. She left her home in rural Mpumalanga back in the 1990s, carrying nothing but a suitcase and hopes of finding a job. “Sometimes I feel like Johannesburg owes me,” she says, leaning on the wall.

Most of Nkosi’s frustration comes from years of patting dough and folding it into small circles to sell for R2 each. This hustle generates a small turnover in profits, which is not enough to raise two orphaned grandchildren in Johannesburg. Diesel fumes hang heavy in the air, filling her lungs with the scent of both sustenance and struggle. She drops the round dough into the sputtering fat. The vetkoek bubbles and turns golden, like little suns.

Nkosi’s sleep is inconsistent, stolen between shifts at the rank as she stands long hours cooking. She describes a pressing heaviness in her muscles. “Joburg never sleeps,” she says with a laugh. According to Mediclinic research this shows what Nkosi describes as being more than exhaustion — it is a risk factor for mental health issues, which includes persistent fatigue and stress on the body. “When people live in environments that demand constant alertness, it affects cognitive function, emotional regulation, and overall resilience,” said Thembelani Nyathi, a regional counsellor.

Humour and warmth are Nkosi’s tools. She jokes around while handing customer’s change. Neglecting one’s body is a mechanism many use to survive in high-stress environments like Johannesburg.

Joburg demands endurance. And every morning, Nkosi delivers.

The Uber Steering Through Fear and Fatigue 

Thirty-four-year-old Siyanda Zwide sits in his grey Suzuki Swift at a petrol forecourt in Braamfontein. He wipes sweat off his brow when his phone buzzes with a map notification – my Uber request to head to Wits Junction. The engine hums softly beneath him, but his mind races ahead – the route, the traffic, streets, people. I get into the car, Zwide starts the trip back to residence, navigating the road and answering my questions.

Zwide’s main business is in construction. Now that he works as an Uber driver, he juggles between being the company manager and making his e-hailing trips. “I took the car on instalment in 2017; these cars usually pay for themselves [referring to instalment cars e-hailing drivers take to start their business],” he says.

Zwide complains about the rise in fuel prices as he is receiving low fares on Uber, which consequently makes him struggle to raise the vehicles R8,000 monthly instalment. Zwide is left pressed working two jobs daily, without any breaks. He sacrifices sleep and family time to meet the monthly costs of living.

When asked about the safety of driving in Johannesburg. His grip on the steering wheel tightens and his knuckles whiten. Every stoplight, every junction, every pedestrian trigger calculation. “Drivers get robbed and killed,” he says, “That is why I only drive during the day.”

That vigilance, “always looking over your shoulder,” is a hallmark of chronic anxiety, says Councillor Nyathi. “Chronic anxiety often shows as hypervigilance — constantly scanning your environment, anticipating threats, even small ones. It’s exhausting for the nervous system, and in a city like Joburg, it’s almost a learned survival mechanism.”

There is evident fear threaded through Zwide gestures: the way he checks rearview mirrors twice, the way his hands hover over the steering wheel even when parked, the way he tilts his head at every approaching car. Psychologists call this hyper-vigilance, a symptom of chronic anxiety triggered by repeated exposure to real and perceived threats. In Gauteng e-hailing drivers have been victims of crime on duty and passengers have also been killed or robbed in e-hailing services.

Every pick-up comes with a silent prayer: that you arrive safely, that no one’s aggression finds you, that the city’s hustle doesn’t sweep you into harm. The dashboard light flickers across his face; the road stretches ahead. Deliveries, taxis, pedestrians… Jozi moves with an energy both intoxicating and intimidating. “People outside the city don’t understand,” he says. “Everyone here is scared. We live with the fear and the rush.” It is reflected in the slight tremor of his hands, the exhaled breath only when stopped, the continuous scan of his mirrors. The psychological toll of balancing two jobs with real danger and emotional labour is quiet, almost invisible, yet it breathes in the tension in his back, the rigidity of his shoulders, the measured patience behind his smile could fool you.

When night falls, Johannesburg does not fold into sleep — it rewires. The city’s drive only changes gear: neon signs replace the sun, late deliveries replace early deadlines, and the day’s tension moves into bars, clubs and kitchen tables. The noise softens but the pressure stays. Here, hunger for success takes a different shape: culture, connection, a reclaiming of time that daytime steals.

At the KFC on the corner of De Korte and Biccard, the fryer’s bright red light throws everyone into a small, shared glow. The place smells of salt and oil and spilled cola; the chairs squeak under bodies that have been sitting too long. I run into Lerato Kopano sitting at a corner table. The 21-year-old remote executive assistant exudes confidence, but one that wraps around thinly veiled fatigue. She balances a phone, a bag and a laugh that arrives like a practiced line.

“My life is measured in deadlines, not days,” she says, adjusting the strap of her bag. She jokes about Jozi: “You have to act like you own it.” Her LinkedIn profile is immaculate; her CV rehearsed; her Instagram curated evidence of survival and success. But when she speaks of clients and late-night calls, her fingers drum the table — a small rhythm of counting the time she has left to herself. At one point she scrolls to a photo on her phone, taps it, and reads aloud a quote printed on her wall: “Be the person you need to be.” It is part instruction, part armour.

Around the table the talk is practical — near-misses with rideshares, cruel clients, the tiny humiliations of contract work — and then it softens into something else: confessions, jokes that fold into real, raw sentences. We laugh; someone cries quietly into a napkin. These post-shift gatherings are therapy by improvisation: a circle of witnesses who say, without medical words, you are not crazy; living here is hard. In a city where formal mental-health help is difficult and stigma is stiff; these pockets of honest venting keep people afloat.

Lerato keeps a stack of printed quotes on her wall — Bible verses slipped in by a friend, motivational lines she pins to mornings she needs to meet. “If I’m feeling off, I Google a quote,” she says, almost apologetic. “Sometimes a verse shows up in my chat from a friend and it’s like someone handed me a cup of water.” The ritual is small but steady: words as scaffolding, optimism as habit. This pattern is a constructed persona, the performative quotes, the collective venting sessions is more than being Gen Z. It is a set of coping moves for a city that demands nonstop performance. According to the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), Joburg ranks among the country’s most stressed cities. Long hours, high unemployment, crime, and cost of living all blur into a perfect storm.

Psychologically, you see this in tiny ways: the rehearsal of confidence (masking), the rapid shifts between humour and seriousness (emotional regulation), the use of mini-rituals —quotations, verses, group venting — to patch up the frayed edges of the day. They’re coping strategies. They’re also indicative of distress when they become the only ways of mending. Sleep gets squeezed in, rumination goes late, and hope is calibrated towards the promotion that comes as the definition of success.

The Mask of Success 

 We met in Sandton at one of those minimalistic aesthetic cafés, where success seems to show off. The kind of place with comfy velvet chairs and the perfect amount of light, surrounded by people who wear productivity like it’s a signature scent. Monique Gey van Pittius makes her way in five minutes early with a laptop bag slung over her shoulder and phone in hand. She moves with purpose — not hurried. Her gaze remains alert, scanning the room with as if she’s always moving, even when she’s still. Her hair is sleek and her blazer freshly-pressed.

Gey van Pittius is 26-year-old television producer who grew up within the city. Her resume tells a story of rapid progress: assistant, coordinator, senior producer each role arriving faster than the one before, like proof that her climb up the ladder was working. “Joburg gets you where you want to be faster,” she says. “What takes two years in Cape Town? Two months here. Sometimes even two weeks.” She smiles, remembering projects she’s working on — the steady building of a reputation you can see. Those wins mattered. They paid rent, bought security, and opened doors.

But the cracks show in small, sharp moments. When she says, “I had a midlife crisis at twenty-four,” I am amazed at her disarming honesty. It is not just a rhetorical twist. Before she knew it, the career ladder towered before her, the target was far, and her personal life, fortunately not down the drain, but down. She arrived late at important moments, missed weddings. She looked at pictures of friends’ children growing up and suddenly saw that she couldn’t remember being there for their very first steps.

As she stands, she says, “You know what the hardest part is? You can’t even tell when the exhaustion starts to feel normal. It just becomes… you.” Johannesburg rewards velocity. It teaches you that rest is laziness, and stillness is failure. Everyone is sprinting toward a version of stability that keeps moving further away.

Gey van Pittius does not suggest leaving Joburg. She urges people to come and experience the city. “This place will move you,” she says. “It will teach you things you won’t find anywhere else.” But she offers a word of caution. When you come, bring a toolkit with you for example going to therapy even if nothing is wrong. Ambition is important but so is making time to be human. Find a mentor who can guide you and true friendships. And have a plan for recovery in case the fast pace turns into a lifetime sprint.

A quieter verdict 

Monique Gey van Pittius thesis [Ed1] [Bm2] [Bm3] idea is a clever little experiment that tests the values of the city. It involves a simple poll with just one question: Do you love to work, or do you work to love? From the answers, she plans to explore how people define luxury in their lives.

The question she keeps returning to is straightforward, yet powerful. The poll aims to reveal what life feels like when you get to choose your own pace instead of having the city dictate it to you. It’s about understanding the freedom to live on your own terms and what that means to people’s sense of luxury and fulfilment.

For this city to truly become world-class, the way we measure success must change It should not only concern the car you drive or the apartment you live in, or the deals you make. Instead success should be about people’s ability to preserve their health, sustain their relationships, and their mental well-being as they chase their dream.

*Not their real name

FEATURED IMAGE: An Uber vehicle waiting for a pickup near the Wits Arts Museum. Photo: File

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