This week, I fought a draining battle with one of my employer’s many online systems. A 10-minute task stretched into days of back-and-forth emails, error messages, and irritating dead ends. When it was finally resolved, the task felt trivial and hardly worth the effort. What lingered was frustration at how much of my life is consumed by pointless tasks, and the suspicion I might be stuck in a meaningless job.

Technology has made many roles feel increasingly meaningless and bureaucratic. The swelling complexity of the systems that govern daily tasks can frustrate, overwhelm, and obscure the broader purpose of our work.

Anthropologist David Graeber popularized the “bullshit jobs” hypothesis, arguing that growing swathes of people feel stuck in roles that add no real value to society, ultimately breeding quiet misery. More recent cross-national studies suggest the reality is less extreme—only a small minority say their job feels pointless—but that's little comfort to those who do feel cut off from the value of what they do. Whatever the true number, a lack of meaning at work can shape how we eat, sleep, drink, and move.

A thinning sense of meaning, plus the grind of bureaucratic complexity, doesn’t just sap motivation; it nudges unhealthy behaviors. Think of a loop:

Evidence links a stronger sense of purpose with better maintenance of healthy behaviors over time (lower odds of inactivity, sleep problems, or unhealthy BMI). On the flip side, work stress is consistently associated with........

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