Isn’t it better to find out that a lot of corporate work may not have much intrinsic meaning now, rather than just before you die? At least then you get a chance to do something about it.
It seems to me these changes are much more daunting if you live in a country where no job means no health insurance, and where the pay gap between skilled and unskilled work is huge. That makes an existential question about work into a very material one.
> much intrinsic meaning now
work should not be considered to have to have intrinsic meaning for it to be worthwhile - you merely need to make sure your pay is worthwhile.
Find intrinsic meaning outside of work. The best way, imho, is to find the highest paying job you can, work super hard and earn maximally, until you built up a nest egg from which you can draw a living off indefinitely. Then, use the remaining time you have left to pursue what you find to be intrinsically rewarding.
No, work is supposed to be at least useful for somebody. Ideally for the society you live in, at least indirectly. If you are wasting your work time, you are also wasting you life time in the same breath. Would you turn every leaf in the forest around twice, if it was the highest paying job? No, because that's a bullshit job.
So, the plan is to work super hard until you are ~40, only to die in a car accident at 35?
Don't plan to have fun later, because later may never come.
I think it doesn't matter when you died.
You didn't exist before you were born, so you had no idea about anything.
You "die" when you go to sleep.
So we could say most of it doesn't matter - of course if there isn't anything after our living here.