The Religion of Progress
We’ve built modern society on the belief that more work, personal sacrifice, and innovation will lead us to salvation. Why?
This essay perhaps speaks most to the high achievers, but everyone could use a good refresher on how we got here.
A relentless pursuit of “busyness” — often masked as “hard work” or “excellence” — defines many of our lives in Western society, but this pursuit exacts a heavy toll. A sacrifice is made. For example, a parent will leave to catch the train to work before their children wake up and then return when they’re already asleep, tethered to a demanding career they feel compelled to pursue. Even for those without families, the cost is no less severe—long hours that erode relationships, hobbies, and moments of solitude or self-care, all sacrificed to an ambitious vision of some self-actualized future for themselves. Health, rest, and time with loved ones are traded for a job, a title, or a quarterly goal often set by others. Yet, in the quiet moments toward life’s end—often when it’s too late—there’s a gnawing hollowness. It feels like regret, though rarely admitted and perhaps hard to recognize. Naming this feeling requires confronting a painful truth, which is, maybe we were sold a vision of life that, upon further review, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Modern Regret and Its Origins
This pervasive regret finds a voice in countless stories. One of those stories is told by Bronnie Ware, a former palliative care provider. In her 2012 book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, drawn from years working with terminally ill patients, Ware writes how the #1 regret folks have is not having lived the life they wanted and instead conforming to other people’s expectations. The next four were —
wishing they hadn’t worked so hard
wishing they had expressed their feelings more
wishing they had stayed in touch with friends
wishing they had allowed themselves to be happier.
These reflections underscore the cost of prioritizing external demands — often just perceived — over personal authenticity and satisfaction.
Another piercing example is the famous Mexican fisherman story (sometimes he’s Italian). An investment banker vacationing in Mexico (or Italy) urges a fisherman to abandon life’s simple pleasures and instead work tirelessly to scale his small operation into a fisheries conglomerate so that he can amass enough wealth to someday… enjoy life’s simple pleasures. This story exposes the borderline insane cognitive dissonance of a work-centric existence. The absurdity of the banker’s advice is so palpable, yet it rarely changes anyone’s behavior. Those on the banker’s path will dismiss the fisherman’s way of life, rationalizing, “Cool story, but that’s not how life works” or some bastardized motivational line, “It’s the journey towards greatness that matters.” They move on, tethered to a system that continues to equate relentless work with inherent virtue.
But why? Where does this idea of work as inherent virtue come from?
How Protestant Coding Took Over
The other week I wrote about how people often live their lives according to underlying “coding” most don’t even realize is there using the Matrix Trilogy films as an analogy. The reflection is less about the coding being “wrong” all the time no matter what and more about the folly of never evaluating it critically and changing it when warranted, rather than following it on permanent auto-pilot like a so-called NPC (non-playable character).
One of the biggest examples of this “coding” runs through the cultural DNA of the United States — the standard-bearer of modern Western society. There is a cultural narrative that intertwines our work with inherent virtue and our history with inevitable progress or “manifest destiny.” In other words, work hard and build because it’s your role in a good society, but with little scrutiny of the outcomes such labor produces or the immediate harm it inflicts on oneself or others.
Something like 40%+ of American adults are obese according to the CDC. And 20%+ are said to have experienced a mental disorder including depression and anxiety according to the NIMH, with some surveys suggesting a far higher number. The new GLP-1 drugs coming out like Ozempic and Wegovy, celebrated as breakthroughs for obesity and diabetes, epitomize this progress narrative. They were invented within a system that exalts relentless innovation, offering a quick-fix type solution to the problem caused by the very system that created it. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle where the virtuous intent of hard work and innovation yields outcomes of questionable value, justified by the refrain of “good intentions.”
So, is this “code” still working well for us today? Or does it need to be overwritten with something new?
Puritan America: The Cultural Template
These modern consequences trace back to a worldview forged by America’s Puritan founders which has compounded over centuries.
Cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky, in his 1973 work The Cultural Geography of the United States, articulated an idea called the Doctrine of First Effective Settlement. He wrote:
“whenever an empty territory undergoes settlement, or an earlier population is dislodged by invaders, the specific characteristics of the first group able to effect a viable, self-perpetuating society are of crucial significance for the later social and cultural geography of the area.”
For the US, the Puritans were that formative group. They embedded their values of discipline, moral rigor, and divine mission into the cultural foundation of what became the United States. This imprint has endured for over 400 years.
The technological catalyst for this worldview was Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, invented around 1440 in Europe. It democratized knowledge at a time when knowledge was closely held by the elite of both church and state alike. It sparked the Protestant Reformation. Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin leveraged this new printing technology to disseminate their critiques of the Catholic Church and its interpretations of the Bible. The resulting surge in literacy allowed regular people to engage directly with scripture and come up with their own interpretations.
Protestantism’s emphasis on personal faith and sola scriptura (meaning “scripture alone”) fostered a culture of self-reliance that defines Puritanism, a more radical Protestant idealogy. Influenced by Calvin’s teachings on predestination and asceticism (extreme self-discipline and rejecting any form of indulgence), Puritans viewed labor as a divine calling. Idleness was a sin. Work demonstrated virtue and fulfilled one’s predestined role as prescribed by God.
As Zelinsky’s doctrine suggests, when Puritans migrated to America, their early communities established this worldview as a cultural template that would endure for hundreds of years and counting.
The Enlightenment and Linear Progress
After the Reformation came the Enlightenment, which amplified Protestant intellectual values by championing reason and science. Thinkers like Francis Bacon, Descartes, and Locke argued that humanity could bend nature to its whim and improve life indefinitely — a radical shift from pre-modern cyclical conceptions of time like the seasons and birth→death→rebirth.
This Enlightenment optimism merged with the Puritan work ethic, as described by sociologist Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In Protestant-dominated regions like England and the Netherlands, this synergy fueled capitalism and industrialization. But in America, where the Puritans had an outsized early influence, these values became more extreme.
The Mayflower didn’t sail directly from England — it departed from Leiden, Netherlands, in 1620, carrying separatist Puritans. In America, they built stable, family-based communities with a vision of a “city upon a hill.” The first book ever published in North America was the Bay Psalm Book in 1640. Their covenant theology framed life as a contract with God, shaping governance, education, and social norms.
America’s “clean slate” geography allowed for a unique culture to form rapidly. Unlike Europe, shaped by deep feudal traditions, America developed a frontier mentality because it was literally a frontier. Idleness was sin. Success was divine. There was always a new frontier ahead and venturing into it was a duty under God — manifest destiny.
From Divine Work to Innovation Worship
Today, America’s work-centric culture and pursuit of progress reflect this Puritan legacy. And since the end of World War II, US cultural hegemony has exported this ethos to much of the world. European countries increasingly adopt American-style productivity metrics and emerging economies embrace relentless growth in order to export and compete globally.
But the glorification of work can lead to burnout. The belief in inevitable progress can marginalize those who prioritize sustainability, happiness, or community. Zelinsky’s doctrine explains why America’s Puritan foundation remains potent — and why its global spread invites reflection now.
Exercises for Tweaking This Coding
Avoid Temporal Blindness
We behave as if time is infinite—as if there will always be another chance to play with our children, call a friend, or go for a walk. Philosopher Ernest Becker, in The Denial of Death, argued that we use “busyness” to shield ourselves from existential dread. Constant work fills the silence where questions about meaning might arise.
Make Sure Your Calendar Reflects Your Values
People say they value family, health, and peace of mind — yet their stuffed calendars tell a different story. This disconnect isn’t always conscious. Over time, identity becomes entwined with work. So instead of changing course, people double down, mistaking career momentum or wealth stacking for meaning and purpose.
Stress-Test the Idea of Infinite Progress
The modern myth says progress is inevitable and sacred. But for most of human history, time was cyclical. “Improvement” was neither expected nor moralized. Enlightenment thinkers introduced linear progress, which capitalism turned into an ever-ascending staircase (the hedonic treadmill, anyone?). Question whether this is always a good thing.
Ask If Innovation Is Your Moral Duty
To slow down is to fall behind. To take a break is to give up. Entrepreneurs are our modern-day explorers and prophets. We need more employment to fuel the future. If followed to its end, this kind of logic points toward post-human AI, immortality through biotech, or terraforming Mars. It no doubt sounds exciting in one sense, but in another seems absurd and “unhuman.” What about raw human connections and a healthy Earth as the priority, with cool cosmic adventurism as a secondary aim?
Ask If Humanity Is Happier
In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari makes the provocative claim that hunter-gatherers may have lived happier lives than modern workers. Despite disease, violence, and shorter lifespans, foragers enjoyed more leisure, closer social bonds, varied diets, and less chronic anxiety. He argues that the Agricultural Revolution increased human populations but reduced individual happiness—a pattern repeated in the industrial and digital revolutions. Each brought complexity, but not necessarily peace. This perspective challenges the assumption that progress inherently improves well-being.
The Predictable Pushback: “This Is Cope”
Some, especially those who’ve achieved wealth or prominence, might dismiss this philosophical critique and reflection as weakness. “This is loser talk,” they’ll say, “a cope for those who couldn’t cut it.” This pushback is predictable, but it deserves a response. Building something great requires effort and discipline and ambition are not inherently bad. The critique isn’t against work—it’s against autopilot, identity-erasing over-investing your scarce human capital in systems that don’t reciprocate happiness and well-being. If you’re winning at work but losing your health, marriage, or connection with your children, how is that success?
The more grounded high-performers among us understand that time is finite. They don’t posture as invincible. They make intentional trade-offs and reflect on their worth. Real power lies in the freedom to choose, not in performative “busyness”. Many successful founders, executives, and investors eventually admit, in memoirs or private conversations, “I missed too much,” or, “I chased validation I didn’t need.” They rarely say it early, as it would undermine the system they depend on.
So, who is coping—those who see the trap early, or those who justify decades spent inside it? Critiquing overwork isn’t anti-business or anti-money. It’s anti-delusion. It’s anti-Matrix coding. It’s for the high-performer who wants to build without becoming hollow, choosing clarity over mindless grind.
When someone mocks others for prioritizing health, family, or rest, it often reveals their own discomfort—their entanglement in a fragile, work-defined identity. The strongest people don’t grind to prove anything. They’ve moved beyond dominating KPIs, realizing the goal is to see the system clearly and step outside it on their own terms if and when they can achieve some escape velocity.
Toward a New Value System
A quiet movement is growing. It says:
Excellence can include presence, not just performance.
Wealth can include time, not just money.
Success can include relationships, not just recognition.
We see this in remote work, portfolio careers, sabbaticals, mid-life semi-retirements, FIRE, minimalism, and a deep focus on mental health. This is progress.
Final Thought: The New Religion (Again)
Post-Enlightenment society didn’t abandon religion — it replaced God with ourselves. Science became scripture, engineers became priests, factories became temples, progress became the path, and humans became gods.
Nietzsche warned that without divine meaning, we’d fill the void with ego and production. The result is a civilization where self-worth is tied to commercial output. We became both worshippers and sacrificial lambs of our new religion.
We’ve built a system that says work makes you worthy, progress is salvation, and the future matters more than now. So perhaps the most radical act — your Lutherian manifesto nailed to the church door — is to reclaim the present from a narrative that demands you sacrifice it.
