Is it just me, or does it feel like modern work is a giant scam? Most days, I’m sitting at my desk feeling like I’m just helping someone else get richer while my own life slips by. The harder I work, the more I realize the system is rigged: a few people at the top win big, and the rest of us are left scrambling for scraps.
All those motivational posters about “climbing the ladder” just sound like a bad joke now. I’m not climbing anything—just trying not to get buried under bills and burnout.
I hate that my value gets measured by how much money I can make for someone else. I hate seeing my friends and family just as stressed out and anxious, all of us pushing through jobs we don’t care about just to survive. The fake positivity, the forced “company culture,” the empty promises of “growth”—none of it feels real when every year things just seem to get harder.
Lately, I find myself longing for a world where we actually look out for each other. Where people have enough, where your whole life isn’t just working to survive, and where nobody gets left behind so someone else can hit their bonus.
Is it naïve to think we could build something better? Is there any hope for people like me who are tired of pretending that “hard work” is the answer, when the whole setup feels broken? Or am I doomed to just grit my teeth and get through the next forty years?
You’re not wrong to feel like something’s off. A lot of people are quietly miserable, trudging through work that drains them, all for the illusion of security and success. The system is absolutely stacked in favor of a few, and it’s easy to feel like you’re just a cog in a machine that doesn’t care if you burn out.
But here’s what nobody wants to say out loud: waiting around for someone else to build a better world for you is a guaranteed way to waste your own life. Yes, the system is flawed. Yes, the deck is stacked. But you still have agency, even when it feels like you don’t.
Your life is more than your job, your title, or your paycheck. You get to decide what matters. Start by getting really clear about your values. Who do you want to be? How do you want to spend your limited time and energy? Find ways—small at first, maybe—to put those values into practice. Build real relationships outside work. Learn a skill that has nothing to do with your boss’s bottom line. Serve other people. Take care of your body. Do work—any work—that reminds you that you’re alive.
And don’t fall for the trap that says you’re stuck forever. You’re not. Change is hard, and yes, the world isn’t always fair. But you don’t have to live a life that feels fake, even if the system is set up for you to do just that.
Take responsibility for what you can control, and start building the life you actually want. Nobody else will do it for you.