From childhood, we’re asked:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
As if a job title defines our identity, our worth, our purpose.
For centuries, society has closely tied work to meaning. We measure success by what we produce, earn and achieve.
But as artificial intelligence begins to transform the very nature of labour, it’s time to ask a deeper question:
If work no longer defines us, what does?
In early human history, work wasn’t something you did, it was how you lived. Hunting, gathering, farming and crafting were integral to survival. To work was to contribute. To contribute was to matter. Purpose and survival were one and the same.
As agricultural societies took root, labour diversified. Some farmed, others led or administered. But the foundation remained unchanged: meaning arose from fulfilling your role in sustaining the whole.
Spiritual traditions reinforced the bond between labour and virtue. In the Middle Ages, work was seen not only as essential but noble.
Religious doctrine taught that labour shaped the soul.
The Protestant work ethic framed hard work as moral evidence of a righteous life.
In Confucianism, diligent effort cultivated both personal integrity and social harmony.
Across continents and cultures, purpose was equated with doing your part, in service of something greater than yourself.
The Industrial Revolution intensified the relationship between work and identity. Factories needed consistent output.
Governments measured progress by productivity. Human value became increasingly tied to how much one could do, build or sell.
Capitalism went further still: work became the very core of identity. You worked to earn, earned to consume, consumed to find purpose and were told you’d never quite arrived. Because there was always more to want, more to chase, more to prove.
Today, many are beginning to question that old story. Rising burnout, “quiet quitting” and disillusionment reflect a deeper truth: tying purpose solely to labour has left people spiritually undernourished.
What happens when you give your life to work and still feel empty?
What happens when AI arrives to do that work faster, cheaper and without fatigue?
The pursuit of “more” has shaped modern life, but it has also masked what truly gives it meaning.
On the Indonesian island of Sumba, near Bali, people live simply and in harmony with their environment.
With little in the way of material possessions, their lives overflow with connection, ritual, and belonging.
Purpose there is not tied to output or status, but to relationships with each other, with the land and with the sacred rhythms of life.
It is a reminder: for most of human history, we have known how to live meaningfully with far less. Purpose has never required busyness or accumulation. It has required presence.
AI is not just changing how we work, it is reshaping why we work.
As automation increasingly handles what once defined our days, it disrupts the long-held belief that labour is our only path to meaning.
Even tech experts describe the shift as “profound and a little bit scary.” AI may bring shorter workweeks, earlier retirements and vast changes to employment. But beneath these practical implications lies something more fundamental:
If work no longer defines who we are, what will?
Perhaps the answer isn’t new; it’s something older we’ve forgotten.
Purpose doesn’t begin with production. It begins with being human.
It comes from:
Connection: with people, places, and ideas
Creation: expressing beauty, meaning, and originality
Contribution: giving time, care and support
Growth: learning, healing and becoming
Wonder: experiencing awe, seeking truth
Work has always been just one avenue to these deeper sources. Now, freed from the survival-driven imperative to work endlessly, we may rediscover them in new ways.
We’re entering a time of great unlearning and great remembering.
A time to loosen the grip of productivity as our only metric of worth. A time to remember that purpose is not assigned by titles or salaries, but discovered in curiosity, connection and care.
The way people live in remote islands teaches us that fulfilment is not born from excess, but from enoughness.
The future, perhaps, is not about building more, but about remembering what already matters.
Let us not wait for AI to take over to ask the questions we’ve always needed to ask.
Let us reimagine purpose on our own terms and reclaim the stillness, the slowness and the wonder that makes life truly rich.
What do you think? How will we find meaning as work fades from the centre of our lives?
Sources:
Caredda, S. (2020). A brief history of work.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Work: Economics.
Gates, B. (2024). The age of AI has begun.
Lena Peller. (2024). Purpose: Re-purposing the meaning of work in our life.
Lifeline Australia. (n.d.). Finding purpose and meaning in your work.
Notre Dame Center for Social Concerns. (2024). Purpose in work and life.
Revisiontown. (n.d.). What is work? Exploring the meaning, history, and future of work in America.
Zubieta, R., & Iancu, D. (2019). The evolution of the meaning of work.