We all know the myth: Sisyphus, condemned by the gods, spends eternity pushing a boulder up a mountain—only to watch it roll back down the moment he nears the top. He begins again. And again. Forever.
For centuries, we've read this as a story about futility. But the real punishment isn't the repetition. It's the erasure. The moment his labor bears fruit—the boulder reaches the summit—it vanishes. His achievement is undone before his eyes.
Sound familiar?
Today's worker lives a softer, salary-paid version of this curse. She masters a new platform—deprecated within months. She builds a team—dissolved in a reorg. She lands a promotion—only to have the role redefined beyond recognition. She applies for jobs—ghosted into silence. She finally gets hired—then watches the department evaporate in a "strategic pivot."
We're not tired because the work is monotonous. We're exhausted because our progress keeps getting deleted.
The Science of Erasure
This isn't just poetic gloom. Psychologists call it *change fatigue*—and it's taking a measurable toll.
A 2024 longitudinal study of over 50,000 German workers found that repeated organizational upheavals—layoffs, mergers, restructuring—correlated strongly with sleep disruption, anxiety, and depression. The more changes employees endured, the worse their symptoms became. As the researchers bluntly concluded: *"Organizational change is often implemented at the cost of employees' working conditions and health."*
Dutch researchers studying a major European bank discovered something even more telling: employees didn't resist change because they opposed the *idea* of change. They resisted because they knew—*knew*—that whatever they built under this initiative would be dismantled by the next one. Trust had evaporated. The problem wasn't the direction; it was the whiplash.
A 2026 McLean & Company report labeled change fatigue "an operational nightmare." The scholars behind the bank study drew a sharper comparison: executives addicted to reorganization resemble gamblers chasing a win that never comes.
No Achievement—Only Work
Automation promised to free us from drudgery. Instead, it accelerated the cycle of obsolescence. Engineers prompt AI instead of writing code. Recruiters triage algorithmic shortlists. Customer service reps manage bots that manage tickets.
The work isn't boring anymore. It's *ephemeral*. We're not stuck in place—we're running on a treadmill that resets itself mid-stride. There is no summit. Only climbing.
This is the quiet crisis of modern labor: not that work lacks meaning, but that *accomplishment* has been decoupled from effort. We produce. We deliver. We adapt. And then—reorg, pivot, sunset—the output vanishes. The hill reclaims its boulder.
Defiance at the Bottom of the Hill
In his 1942 essay *The Myth of Sisyphus*, Albert Camus asked what Sisyphus thinks about during his descent—the moment between failure and renewal. Most would assume despair. Camus saw something else.
*"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."*
Not because the task has meaning. But because Sisyphus *sees* its absurdity. He is free from illusion. His defiance isn't in reaching the top—it's in walking back down with clear eyes, fully aware of the gods' cruelty, and choosing to push anyway—not for redemption, but because the act itself becomes his own.
For the 21st-century worker, defiance looks different from it did for Camus' generation. It isn't grinding harder or "finding passion" in the grind. It's refusing the lie that our worth depends on work that refuses to last.
The ancient gods demanded only the climb. Today's gods demand the climb *plus* enthusiasm, *plus* gratitude, *plus* the pretense that this time—*this time*—the boulder will stay.
They shouldn't be surprised when we stop pretending.
Happiness in the Sisyphean age isn't found at the summit. It's found in the descent—in the moment we look back at the vanished boulder, shrug, and walk down the hill on our own terms. Not because the work matters. But because *we* do—regardless of what rolls back down behind us.