I did everything right. I did well in school and spent countless nights sacrificing sleep, partying, and fun and I was promised it would off on the other side. I got the corporate 9-5, but I spend all my time commuting, getting ready for work, and I really only have a couple of hours to yourself on the weekdays unless I want to punish myself tomorrow and sacrifice sleep. Which I keep doing, but even with a full night’s sleep, I’m still tired all the time. I spend every weekend catching up on chores and being too tired to enjoy my hobbies. There’s no end to this in sight. My “Sunday scaries” are turning into a daily dread of going into work, everyday is meaningless, and, honestly, I’m on the edge of a mental breakdown. Is this just adult life?

You probably resonate with at least some of this. And there’s a lot to unpack here. There’s the social pressures of following a traditional, risk adverse route to a career: get some education, find a stable job, raise a family- something-something-something for 40 years,–nd maybe you can retire, enjoy your hobbies for a few years while your body rots, and then die.

There’s the financial pressures of working full-time and still not being able to afford luxuries or even the bare necessities and living paycheck to paycheck. Unless you’re getting a sizable inheritance, the average young adult is not buying a house on their salary. Then there’s the pressure of the job itself: you’re there like your entire day, the majority of it is boring nonsense, and it’s like a dull stream of constant stress. You’re tired all the time–not just physically, but emotionally–your entire soul is tired.

And of course you’re tired: you’re doing something that you don’t like for the whole day. Of course you’re bored: you have no time or money for stuff you actually like doing. Of course you’re anxious: you feel trapped in this cycle and everybody is telling you this is normal and to suck it up like an adult. Of course you’re depressed: you’ll never have the life that the 1% get to live and you have to do this meaningless work for the next 40 years.

History of work, hustle culture, and reactions…

In August 14, 2013, Doreen Ford created a subreddit /r/antiwork which criticized modern work and eventually grew to, as of making this video, 2.8 million members. Unfortunately, in 2022, Ford had an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters that went, oh, not so great. Antiwork is a leftist movement and an interview on Fox was bound to be contentious. And it’s a big moment for this internet movement: it’s an opportunity to introduce millions of people–a general audience that likely isn’t on the internet much and certainly doesn’t hang around leftist groups–to be introduced and be convinced of this movement. Doreen Ford is a trans woman with no media training and seemingly very little preparation. The interview reinforced a lot of prejudices about anti-work: they’re a bunch of weird internet kids whining about working because they’re lazy, entitled, and haven’t worked hard for anything in their life. Isn’t it interesting how political movements can lose their legitimacy so fast if they’re seen as cringe? Like fedora wearing neckbeards and new atheism, or JD Vance having sex with a couch and conservatives getting called weird. We should get like furry sleeper agents to infiltrate hate groups to make them cringe.

Anyway, despite the poor public launch, the anti-work subreddit clearly resonates with a lot of people. Something is going wrong with modern work, and more and more people are unhappy. These people aren’t lazy or entitle or delusion; they’re the working class and they have legitimate criticisms. The U.S. has a lot of wage stagnation, high job turnover, and job insecurity. People have abuses bosses, long hours for low pay, and toxic work environments. Jobs have weird corporate cultures, are devoid of meaning, and leave us no time or energy to live the rest of our lives. You can always say it could be worse: there are always people working more for less and being oppressed even more. Or you can stick your head in the sand and say that’s just how work is: work is work; it’s not fun. But work is such a fundamental part of people’s lives that it’s probably worth looking into these issues. There seems to be something broken with work in the modern world that’s making a lot of people unhappy. 

How did we get here? Here’s a super short history: in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, a bunch of nerds hopped up on coffee started making governments more stable, which led to more stable economies. This was the enlightenment. More free time and smarter people led to cool machines like the steam engine, the spinning jenny, and the power loom. These machines sped up production and this led to the Industrial Revolution. The people factories worked long hours because of some protestant work ethic or catholic guilt, and this led to a rise in capitalist ideologies of linking personal worth to productivity and economic output. Hashtag grind, hashtag no days off, hashtag money. Economics boomer and people got rich, and in the 20th century, there was a rise in the U.S. American dream of rags-to-riches stories to further perpetuate productivity. But most industrial jobs were working long hours and often six/seven days a week, and people weren’t too happy with this, so labor movements arose with unions and workers’ rights advocates. There was a global labor movement advocating for “8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, and 8 hours for recreation,” but a key figure was the original pick-up truck douchebag, Henry Ford. In 1926, he implemented the 9-5 and 5 days a week approach. Like most corporate acts of charity, it was really for selfish reasons: he wanted his workers to be more productive and he thought maybe giving them rest would do that, and he thought giving them leisure time would mean they would buy more his cars, and he finally wanted to shut up those pesky labor movement people. Capitalism at its finest.

Then the war happened, people came back traumatized, and there was a focus on consumerism and using work to buy nice things. The peaceful suburban life made these former soldiers loyal to companies and they defined their new identities as company men. They passed on this norm of work and stability, along with their unresolved war trauma, to their boomer children, who kept the gears of capitalism turning and reaped the benefits of buying houses for like a dollar, pay student debt by washing dishes, and get a job by shaking the hands of a random CEO. But capitalism peaked, then got worse and worse as it entered into its late stages.

Now we have hustle culture amplified by social media. Being more productive means getting ahead, getting more money, and getting head. You need to work beyond your 9-5; you want to break free from the 9-5, then the key is more work. You don’t like your job, work harder and more to get another? Want more free time? Work more to get it. The hustle culture feeds on feelings of jealousy, anxiety, and loneliness by presenting curated feeds that create unrealistic life expectations and FOMO. It deepens polarization and misinformation, pushing users into little bubbles to be radicalized. The addictive design of social media, driven by constant notifications, results in a loss of time and agency, where users consume content out of habit rather than genuine desire. We’re addicted to the idea that more work will make us successful. But all more work has done is made us burnt out, depressed, and anxious…

Then a global pandemic hit. It was scary, especially when everybody was sent home for lockdown and nobody knew what was going on, but it gave every stressed out worker a break from work. It gave them a chance to think about their life, their career, and what they want out of life, which was bad news for the employers who are hoping to keep you so busy and tired that you don’t think about these things. During COVID, in early 2021, people started to voluntarily resign from their jobs, which  Anthony Klotz coined  as the “Great Resignation.” The highest number of resignations came from millennials and Gen Z. It was beautiful, like a good old labor strike, it was a mass protest against burnout and modern work culture.

Unfortunately, the gears of capitalism keep turning. The people who quit  struggled to find better jobs. The boom in automation and AI has led to replacing workers to reduce labor costs. But even after COVID, there was more hybrid work but jobs still sucked. I’m sure social media and modern isolation are huge factors, but the modern work culture does so much to aggravate mental illness. The stress, the lack of time to sleep, exercise, eat right, or see a therapist, the substance use to cope, and the financial pressures of trying to survive on a tiny salary. 

In China, around the time of the Great Resignation and tang ping began in April 2021. It’s a Chinese slang term called “tang ping” or “lying flat”. Tang ping began with  an internet post by Luo Huazhong: essentially quit his dead end job, spent his time cycling, reading philosophy, and doing odd jobs to survive.  China’s work culture is even worse: they have the 996, which is a norm where you work from 9AM to 9PM, 6 days a week–it’s technically illegal, but who’s really scolding companies in China for working too hard? Tang ping means lowering your professional and economic ambitions to just live a simple life to meet essential needs and prioritize psychological health. This inspired another movement in the US: quiet quitting.

Quiet quitting is such an interesting phenomenon. You can’t resign the job because you need money, so maybe the next best thing is to do the bare minimum at the job. No going above and beyond, no volunteering for more work; set your boundaries and just do the minimum to stay employed, then enjoy the rest of your life. Quiet quitting falls under a larger category called “work-to-rule”, which is a kind of strike tactic without actually striking.

The Italians called it, “sciopera biano” or “white strike” where employees do the bare minimum in their contract and be super petty about following rules to waste time. Hot Autumn (1969-1970), or hot Italian boy fall, Italy had factory workers using this tactic and they would insist on wearing full protective gear and conducting every single safety inspection; if you’ve ever worked in a factory, people skip a lot of safety stuff unless it’s really dangerous, because it takes forever if you did everything by the book. They would take breaks and leave their station exactly when their shift ended which caused incomplete products to pile up on the production line. They would make sure every piece of paperwork was perfectly documented and completed at the slowed possible rate to create backlog. They would point out the smallest defects and log minor issues. They weaponized the bureaucracy.

It’s a form of malicious compliance, or complying with order knowing it will have negative results. I personally love hearing these stories, so here are some more. Austrian postal workers normally accept without weighing all items that are obviously not overweight, but, during a dispute, they took every piece of mail, weighed it, and took it back; by the second day, their office was crammed with unweighted mail. French air traffic controllers started filing mandatory weather reports every few minutes, following outdated regulations to the letter; it caused air traffic control systems to be overwhelmed with weather updates, delaying flights, and pilots sarcastically thanked controllers for keeping them “informed about every cloud in the sky.” Postal workers in Canada walked their delivery routes at a literal “walking pace,” sticking to health and safety rules about avoiding running or overexerting themselves. Firefighters protesting budget cuts in the US drove fire trucks to all official duties, including grocery shopping or picking up takeout for the firehouse; they argued that they needed to “always be prepared” in case of an emergency.

Critiques of labor

Why exactly does modern work suck so much? By “work”, I mean the dirty work that we often have to do to trade time for money to survive: the employment, the jobs, the careers, or whatever common sense notion you want to use.

Maybe it’s the working conditions. On the grand scheme, the 9-5 corporate work environment isn’t so bad, right? It’s safer than working in a mine, it’s less physically demanding than a sweatshop, but we said we’re not going to play the game of comparison here because somebody is always going to have it work. Working in a tiny office or cubical for most of the waking day in a chair in front of a computer is not great for your body and mind. Your job also isn’t secure and maybe AI will replace you one day. If you’re a minority group, you’ll probably face discriminations and micro aggressions in the work place. Even if you’re not, you might not have a lot of upward growth unless you switch jobs. You also have to deal with office politics, management, and the constant surveillance and scrutiny.  You also don’t get paid a lot and wages have stagnated for a while.

Let’s focus on the money point for a bit. There’s a term called “wage slavery” which critiques the systemic exploitation inherent in wage-based employment, emphasizing the dependence of workers on wages for survival. You can’t really quit your job or else you’ll be homeless and hungry. It’s not really a fair choice and there’s unequal bargaining power between employers and workers. “Slavery” is a charged word, but it’s been an idea since antiquity; Cicero, for instance, likened wage labor to a form of servitude, emphasizing its restrictive and dehumanizing nature. We’re under the persistent threat of poverty, so we have really little control over our work conditions.

We’re not farmers anymore, the original entrepreneurs, that can grow their own food; we’re dependent on large corporations to give us money to buy food. We have to obey their rules of “professionalism” and obey their schedule and ensure we prioritize their goals over our own families, hobbies, and freedom. Friedrich Nietzsche critiqued the glorification of relentless work for obstructing personal development and reason, and he described work as a mechanism that “keeps everybody in harness and powerfully obstructs the development of reason, of covetousness, of the desire for independence.” I like to sprinkle in Nietzsche to connect with the youth.

Unlike chattel slavery, wage labor offers the illusion of freedom that we choose our employment. But this “freedom” is really picking which master to work for or else we go homeless and hungry.  Frédéric Lordon, in Willing Slaves of Capital,  argues that individuals often internalize organizational goals at the expense of their own desires, effectively surrendering their autonomy to the economic system. This surrender reflects a psychological compartmentalization, where workers become “willing slaves,” aligned with goals not originally their own. We become tools, corporate drones, our work persona takes over.

In Dan Erickson’s Severance, we’re introduced to the employees of Lumon Industries who perform a sci-fi brain procedure called “severance” that divides the employee’s consciousness into two: the innie and the outie. The innie is the employee with all their memories erase, so they have a new person entirely that exists only within the workplace and has no memory of life outside. The outie is the normal person before the procedure that lives life outside and knows nothing about what happens in the job. Every time the outie goes to work, the innie activates in the elevator. It’s a split consciousness: to the innie, life is always work; to the outie, life is outside of work. If you’re somebody like John Locke, who believes your personal identity or what makes you who you are, is tied to your memories, then this procedure essentially makes two people sharing one body.

This show dives into the concept of wage slavery and the innie and outie is a metaphor for the extreme psychological compartmentalization and alienation workers feel in the corporate environment. The innies exist to serve their employers and work all the time, and they’re essentially enslaved by their outies to do so; the innies have no lives, no autonomy, or personal development. The work that they do is also obscure and mundane, and they’re essentially tortured if they are disobedient.

The innies are told they can cancel the procedure if the outie agrees to it. But the choice is illusory. One of the innies tries to do this, but the outie refuses. The outie needs the innie to continue working to ensure that the outies can keep living, succeeding, and coping in the outside world. The innie grows contemptuous of the outie; with no memories of the outside culture of capitalism or the outie’s perspective on prioritizing economic progress, the innie can’t fathom the idea of being subjugated or that anything would be worth giving up freedom and autonomy.

There’s a fragmentation of our identity in the modern corporate workplace. I can’t be myself, I can’t spend time with the people I really want to, and I don’t care about increasing shareholder profit or making the company clients happy. Some workplaces are so awful that I really feel like I need to disassociate myself as soon as I enter work. I have to be this amiable, professional, instrument representing the face of the company, and it’s so far from who I actually am that I have to suppress my actual self for most of my waking life.

Ok, therapy session over. “Upon request, I can also perform a hug.” Maybe it’s not the work conditions that suck, maybe the problem is with the work itself. David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs: A Theory critically explores the emergence and persistence of seemingly purposeless jobs within contemporary economies. He defines a “bullshit job” as a type of employment so devoid of meaningful contribution that even those performing the job struggle to justify its existence, yet feel compelled to maintain the pretense of its necessity. Graeber identifies five distinct categories of such jobs. The first, “flunkies,” encompasses positions that exist primarily to bolster the appearance of importance for others, such as receptionists with no substantive responsibilities. The second, “goons,” refers to roles that involve aggressive or adversarial functions, such as lobbyists or corporate lawyers, whose work often prioritizes conflict over constructive outcomes. “Duct tapers” are employees who temporarily resolve systemic inefficiencies without addressing their root causes, highlighting the wastefulness of temporary fixes. The fourth category, “box tickers,” includes roles that give the illusion of productivity through meaningless paperwork or reporting. Finally, “taskmasters” are managers whose primary function is overseeing others, often in ways that are unnecessary or counterproductive. Graeber attributes the proliferation of such roles to what he terms “managerial feudalism,” where organizational hierarchies expand not to increase productivity but to bolster power structures. This expansion, he argues, contributes to widespread dissatisfaction and psychological distress among workers who sense the futility of their roles. The psychological toll of performing a job perceived as purposeless includes heightened stress, depression, and alienation, as employees grapple with a lack of fulfillment and autonomy.

Maybe AI will get rid of these bullshit jobs. Or maybe capitalism will get rid of these inefficiencies over time. Or maybe we’re stuck with these bullshit jobs until they’re removed one by one like an appendix. I think the biggest tragedy of these bullshit jobs is that people spend their entire lives working at them without meaning or purpose. What a waste of a life. Even worse are the people who know their jobs are bullshit and have to deal with the existential misery of pushing that boulder up the hill everyday. At least the blissfully ignorant self-important bullshit employee believes they have some purpose. The ones who know better are seriously trapped in an airconditioned, neon lit hell. 

Ok, maybe it’s not the working conditions or the work itself; maybe work in general is just a bad thing for humans. The critique of work as a cultural and economic construct challenges deeply rooted assumptions about its role in human flourishing. In The Right to Be Lazy, Lafargue argues that labor or work is a source of alienation and degradation. Drawing inspiration from ancient Greek ideals, where labor was relegated to slaves while free citizens pursued intellectual and leisurely activities, Lafargue contends that modern workers have been indoctrinated into valuing work at the expense of their well-being. Thinkers in this camp highlight the capacity of work to erode autonomy and joy, advocating for a cultural shift toward pleasure and self-determination over productivity. Conceiving of ourselves primarily as workers leads to a sort of instrumental stance on ourselves and other human agents, in which we come to view ourselves purely as resources for production or sites of consumption. The philosophical roots of this critique stretch back to the Cynics of ancient Greece, with figures like Diogenes of Sinope rejecting societal norms that equated human worth with material achievement or labor.

Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness argues that societal progress is rooted not in relentless labor but in the cultivation of leisure. Leisure is different from work because you enjoy it for the value it brings to you and not some objective value. You can’t hire somebody to generate that value. You have to be the one to watch the movie, go for a walk, or whatever. The veneration of work has eroded our appreciation of the value of leisure and idleness. The social cachet of work may end up warping our moral relationship to ourselves, treating ourselves not as intrinsically valuable but as mere instruments of production. Russell challenges the moralization of work, arguing that technological advancements could reduce working hours, enabling individuals to pursue leisure and intellectual fulfillment. He suggests that the modern glorification of work enslaves individuals to survival-driven productivity, crowding out opportunities for reflection, innovation, and self-expression. He envisions a society where reduced working hours would eliminate unemployment and enhance collective happiness, allowing people to pursue intellectual and creative pursuits. This perspective reframes idleness as a condition of freedom, integral to the realization of human potential.

This view isn’t popular, especially since “work ethic”, and equating work with moral and social worth, is so ingrained in our historical narrative. Throughout history, those who deviate from traditional employment have faced harsh condemnation. During Nazi Germany, individuals labeled as “work-shy” were persecuted, while in contemporary societies, derogatory labels like “slacker,” “welfare queen,” and “parasite single” reflect anxieties about dependency and productivity. In Japan, for instance, terms like freeter and parasite single signify young adults who resist conventional career paths, revealing the cultural entrenchment of labor as a measure of individual value. Far from promoting stagnation, such critiques advocate a radical reimagining of societal values, prioritizing human flourishing over the relentless demands of productivity. Idleness and leisure are reclaimed as essential conditions for creativity, self-determination, and holistic well-being.

I don’t think work is essentially bad, but, like Bob Black argues, “forced labor” or “compulsory production” is the “source of nearly all misery in the word.” We’re forced to work because we need to in order to not be on the streets. If all our needs were met, we would be going work that helps us thrive: serving the community, helping the young, sick disabled, teaching, giving us purpose… Unfortunately, these jobs are the lowest paid and overworked in society. All the work that puts food on the table and a roof over us takes too much time. And we work too much. 8 hours a day really is like 10-12 with commutes and trying catch up on unpaid domestic work… there’s no time for leisure, sleep, exercise, family, or community life. Work can definitely be a source of a lot of good, just not the kind of work in our society.

I have to add one more critique of work that’s probably the most influential and combines various critiques of work into a unified theory: that’s right… Reddit’s antiwork! No, Marxism or critiques of work under capitalism. Karl Marx, communist extraordinary, critiqued work under capitalism in terms of exploitation, which he views as a structural feature of all class-based societies. But, unlike feudalism or slavery, exploitation under capitalism takes on a particularly disguised and pervasive form. Marx understands exploitation as a systemic process tied to the organization of production, private property, and the wage labor system. He understood value in terms of labor, meaning that the value of a commodity corresponds to the socially necessary labor time required for its production. In a capitalist economy, workers don’t receive the full value of what they produce. Instead, they are compensated with a wage that covers only a portion of their labor’s value, while the remaining surplus value is appropriated by capitalists.

Marx views this arrangement as the defining mechanism of exploitation under capitalism—what he calls the “theft of economic power,” because the capitalist profits from the surplus labor of workers. This process isn’t accidental or just because people are greedy, it’s a feature of capitalism itself. Workers lack ownership of the means of production—factories, tools, machinery, and raw materials—and have to sell their labor power to survive. For example, in a factory setting, workers might produce goods worth $500 per day, but their wages might amount to only $100. The difference, $400, constitutes the surplus value captured by the capitalist. This fundamental asymmetry forces workers to accept the terms offered by capitalists under conditions where the alternatives—unemployment or destitution—are untenable. Thus, while capitalist labor markets appear to operate through free and consensual exchange, Marx insists that the economic compulsion to sell one’s labor renders genuine freedom illusory.

The result is a systemic and disguised form of exploitation that perpetuates inequality and concentrates wealth. Although Marx recognizes that all class societies (e.g., slavery, feudalism) expropriate surplus labor from the working classes, capitalism distinguishes itself by making this exploitation appear voluntary. For instance, a medieval serf might visibly labor under the coercion of a feudal lord, but the capitalist laborer signs a contract that conceals the underlying economic compulsion. This illusion of freedom is perpetuated through ideological mechanisms that normalize wage labor and private property. For instance, the promise of upward mobility and the idealization of meritocracy encourage workers to view their circumstances as a result of individual effort rather than systemic constraints. Additionally, consumerism distracts workers from their exploitation by emphasizing material acquisition as a marker of success. In this way, capitalism masks its inherent inequalities and sustains the illusion of free and fair exchange.

Another central concept is alienation. While exploitation describes the economic process by which capitalists appropriate surplus value, alienation focuses on the social and experiential consequences on the workers. In Marx’s view, alienation under capitalism manifests in four key ways:

(1) Alienation from the product of labor: Workers do not own what they produce. For example, an assembly line worker manufacturing cars will never own or enjoy the fruits of their labor, as the products belong to the capitalist.

(2) Alienation from the act of labor: Work becomes a monotonous means to earn wages, devoid of intrinsic fulfillment. Tasks are often repetitive and deskilled, stifling creativity and self-expression.

(3) Alienation from other workers: Capitalism fosters competition rather than cooperation, pitting workers against one another for jobs or promotions. This dynamic erodes solidarity, preventing collective action.

(4)Alienation from human potential: Repetitive and narrowly defined tasks prevent workers from realizing their intellectual and creative capacities, leaving their broader humanity underdeveloped.

For Marx, this alienation dehumanizes workers, reducing them to instruments of production rather than autonomous beings capable of creative and meaningful work. Alienation thus underscores the broader human cost of capitalist exploitation: not only economic inequality but also the estrangement of individuals from their own potential. Marx emphasizes that although exploitation has existed in various forms throughout history—feudal lords extracting surplus from serfs, slave owners profiting from enslaved labor—capitalism introduces a unique form of “free labor.” Coercion is replaced by economic dependence. Workers appear to have the freedom to choose their employer, but this choice is overshadowed by the reality that they must sell their labor power to survive.

What can we do?

Maybe we can hope it works itself out. AI can take over monotonous, dangerous, or repetitive tasks, complementing rather than replacing human workers. By focusing on areas where human strengths—like emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills—are irreplaceable, AI can create more meaningful work environments. Maybe this will give room for progressive change like the four day work week. Research from organizations adopting shorter workweeks reveals a range of benefits, including increased productivity, better mental health, and enhanced work-life balance. Or maybe universal basic income to provide a guaranteed income to all individuals, so everybody can have financial security. Experiments like Canada’s Mincome project, the Madhya Pradesh study in India, and Namibia’s Basic Income Grant Pilot Project consistently demonstrate that recipients experience improved health, higher educational attainment, and stronger community well-being. But this would upset the corporations, which would upset the billionaires, which would upset the politicians, which means this probably wont happen.

Maybe you really do have to work even harder and win the game of capitalism for financial freedom. The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement aims is to enable individuals to retire significantly earlier than the traditional age, granting the freedom to pursue passions, hobbies, or alternative work arrangements without being tethered to conventional employment. It advocates for the accumulation of wealth through aggressive savings, strategic investments, and frugal living. You can add passive income streams or get a side hustle, you can go back to school for a higher paying job, or maybe move somewhere with a low cost of living. But this takes years of your life and sacrificing so much time; you could do the whole delayed gratification for 10-20 years, reach your FIRE goal, then die the next day. Where else can you get a windfall of money? Marry rich? Play the lottery? Become an entrepreneur?

Maybe you need to get lucky and find a humble job that you like, maybe even work it part time, and live on the border of poverty with general contentment. Or keep the corporate job, look within, keeping pushing the boulder, Sisyphus, and try to be happy. Capitalism and the shape of our work culture is just another absurdity in life and another one of life’s inherent struggles; maybe you just need to derive meaning in the struggle itself and keep pushing.

Maybe this soul sucking aspect of work is why new-aged spirituality is in. Practice mindfulness and gratitude. Or read some Stoicism and roleplay as some ancient Greco-Roman instead of being some nerd in a Patagonia vest. Distinguish what you can and cannot control and have inner tranquility over external circumstances. Then take a Zoloft and go on a bender.

Or find Jesus, you heathen bastards. Again, I blame the stupid Church and their stupid morality of a protestant work ethic and thinking working will make your father love you. Cue Freud. It can definitely soften the drudgery of the corporate world if you think your administrative job is part of some higher calling. If you couldn’t tell from my tone, I don’t agree that the corrupt form of work we find under capitalism is super conducive to Christian spiritual development and I think it actually amplifies vices like envy, pride, greed, and gluttony.

Paul LaFargue wrote, “A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where capitalist civilization holds its sway… This delusion is the love of work… Instead of opposing this mental aberration, the priests, the economists and the moralists have cast a sacred halo over work. Blind and finite men, they have wished to be wiser than their God; weak and contemptible men, they have presumed to rehabilitate what their God had cursed.”

Being a hard worker is considered a virtue in this society. But we should work at being better people, work at loving others, and regularly rest and enjoy life. If you’re sacrificing any of these for more money, social status, or just the inertia of following what our capitalists culture pushes on you, maybe you need to figure out who you are. 

The number one death bed regret is not having the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. Number two is, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.