We are told to take pride in our work, find purpose in it, and ultimately, tie our identity to it.

But what if the problem is that work asks for too much and offers too little in return?

Many of us move through the workday with a nagging sense of underachievement, wondering if we are lazy, incompetent or simply not a good “cultural fit” for the role. But this is not a personal failure. It is a structural condition.

The modern workplace often demands that we be emotionally resilient and adaptable, while offering little clarity, security or recognition surrounding our efforts. Instead, we are expected to thrive in disordered environments, where expectations shift, success is hard to measure and stress is quietly normalised.

Under such conditions, we must carry the burden of believing that our dissatisfaction is unique, if not self-inflicted. If only we were better, stronger or more focused, we could feel differently. But in truth, many of us are silently enduring the same disillusionment and have quietly lost faith that our work matters.

This is not just about individual jobs. It is about the system that shapes them. It is about corporations that treat workers as functions to be optimised, instead of complex human beings.

It is about a system that was not designed to nurture our well-being, protect our time or reward our curiosity. Instead, it is a system that was built to extract value, and our lives are bent to fit that purpose.

And it is significant what gets lost in this process of reducing people to functions. We are more than our job titles, position descriptions or performance reviews. We are full of talents, instincts and inner lives that our jobs will never ask for, let alone notice.

The cost of this mismatch is boredom, as well as the quiet erosion of possibility, if not the complete erasure of what else we could have been, had it not been for this job or career trajectory.

Even in socially valuable roles, such as those of nurses, social workers and teachers, there is often a disconnect between what they do and how it feels. Meaningful work can still feel meaningless when it is completed under pressure and without dignity, isolated from competent leadership and a broader vision.

And then there are our colleagues. These are personalities we would avoid in any other setting, but must tolerate, if not appease, for the length of our workday. In high-stress environments, even good people can become difficult.

Therefore, we should not feel broken for being frustrated and disappointed with our work.

Only when we stop blaming ourselves for how we feel can we begin to imagine something better.