Despite better tools, more choice, and higher productivity, more people feel misaligned.
Work feels heavier.
Motivation is harder to sustain.
Fatigue appears earlier.
This is often framed as a personal or cultural failure.
It is neither.
The assumption people make about progress
Progress is expected to reduce friction.
Better technology should make work easier.
More flexibility should improve fit.
More information should help people choose better paths.
When misalignment increases instead, the explanation turns inward.
Why increased choice doesn’t guarantee better fit
Choice helps only when people can accurately sense cost.
Many cannot.
They have been trained to ignore internal signals.
They choose paths based on:
- status
- stability
- external approval
- narratives of success
These filters optimise appearance, not alignment.
How modern work increases internal cost
Much modern work requires:
- continuous attention switching
- abstract goal management
- emotional self-regulation
- constant self-monitoring
These demands are biologically expensive.
They are unevenly tolerated.
Yet they are becoming more common.
Why systems drift away from human fit
As systems scale, they optimise for coordination.
Coordination favours standardisation.
Standardisation reduces variation.
Reduced variation increases mismatch.
This is not malicious.
It is a scaling effect.
The role of delayed feedback
Misalignment often pays off initially.
Compensation works.
Output remains high.
The cost shows up later.
This delay allows systems to expand without noticing the damage.
Why endurance masks the trend
Many people adapt.
They normalise strain.
They lower expectations.
They call exhaustion “adult life.”
This masks the increase in misalignment.
Why advice culture misses the pattern
Most advice focuses on optimisation.
Better habits.
Better routines.
Better mindset.
These can improve tolerance.
They do not change fit.
Why misalignment feels personal
The cost is experienced individually.
So the explanation becomes personal.
People assume they are failing to adapt.
The structural trend goes unnamed.
What this is not saying
This is not saying alignment was perfect in the past.
It was not.
The difference is scale and persistence.
Misalignment is now more continuous and harder to escape.
The simplest truth
Misalignment is increasing because systems are optimised for coordination, visibility, and endurance.
Human biology has not changed at the same pace.
The gap between the two is where the strain accumulates.
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