I think we are on the cusp of a meaning crisis. Many, possibly most, derive their meaning from the work they do. If they are in a specialized profession, they have invested a great deal of time, energy, and money to arrive at where they are. They’ve gone to university, perhaps they’ve received an advanced degree, they’ve given many years of effort, sacrificed many nights away from their family, but by God have they done it!

I like the ‘rosebud’ thought experiment. In Citizen Kane (1941), Kane utters his final deathbed word, ‘rosebud’, which, as it transpires in the movie, is the name of his childhood sled. For this wealthy and powerful newspaper magnate, rosebud represents a joyful before time, a lost innocence, a longing for a bygone time when he was not consumed by his ongoing pursuit for wealth and power.

In the year 2000, the game The Sims was released. The Sims is a life-simulation PC game where players create a virtual person (a sim) and manage their relationships, careers, homes, and daily lives. I was going on twelve when The Sims was released—it was a formative game of my childhood.

In The Sims, there was a cheat code you could activate by pressing Ctrl + Shift + C, which brought up a command bar. In homage to Citizen Kane (not a reference I would have understood at the time), you could type the word rosebud, and it would give you $1000 (or 1000 simoleons, the in-game currency). You could do this as many times as you wanted. In other words, it was an unlimited money cheat code.

The thought experiment, therefore, is quite simple: if you had unlimited money, what would you do? What would you do today? Where would you see yourself years from now? How would you live your life?

With few exceptions, I don’t think many would continue in their 9-to-5 jobs. Initially, people might satisfy their material desires—buying cars, homes, and dining in fancy restaurants. But beyond that, we could imagine a sort of meaning crisis ensuing: where would they now derive their purpose?

This question has implications for how we prepare for the future. If you were deciding what to study at university today, I would strongly advise against focusing solely on technical subjects. Instead, consider immersing yourself in the humanities—philosophy, history, literature, or the arts. These fields nurture critical thinking, creativity, and an understanding of what it means to live well, qualities that will be essential in a post-scarcity world.

Once freed from the demands of work, people might turn their attention to hobbies, prioritizing physical and mental wellness, or delve into subjects like philosophy, history, or spirituality. They may pursue creative expression and, perhaps most importantly, deepen their relationships with community, family, and friends.

In my previous life as a religious minister, I had the privilege of speaking to quite a few people in their dying days. My enduring observation from this time, and from these conversations, is the fact that people on their deathbed do not discuss the meaningful work they have done in their life—it never happens. The bereaved often put a strong emphasis upon what an individual did for a living, but the dying almost exclusively talk about their meaningful relationships, family, and friends.

I am therefore tempted to conclude, from rosebud and from deathbed talk, that the supposed meaning that people derive from work is more illusory than they can imagine. It is more of a distraction than anything else. Given the freedom, the money, the opportunity, meaning is still derived from the same place. If they are wise, they will invest more in these areas.

Many people fall into the trap of believing that because they’ve invested significant time, money, and energy into their careers, these should inherently provide them with meaning, purpose, and happiness. This sense of entitlement—though perhaps that’s not quite the right word—stems from the sunk cost fallacy: the idea that past sacrifices justify continued belief in a system that may no longer serve them. Yet meaning, as life and death remind us, is not earned through effort alone. It arises from what we cultivate beyond work—relationships, passions, and the deeper connections that give life its richness.

It reminds me of the Workers in the Vineyard parable that Jesus tells. Some do a whole day of labor, and some do only a few hours, and yet all are paid ‘a denarius’ (Matthew 20:13-15). Jesus is obviously telling this parable to talk about heaven. Some labor for the Lord for a lifetime, whereas others only for a few years, and yet all are given eternal heavenly bliss. How is that fair? Jesus is pressing us to not think in terms of what is fair, and what is just, but rather to delight in the reward—to not think, in other words, about what is due to us.

If it’s not clear already, I’m obviously talking about the post-scarcity world that is going to be delivered to us by artificial intelligence. It remains debatable how far off that is, and perhaps there are periods of strife before we even get there, but it is coming—maybe a few years away, maybe a decade. But what then? What are you going to do once you’re given the cheat code?

In a post-scarcity world, purpose will no longer be tied to merit or effort. The comparisons that once defined us—who worked harder, who sacrificed more—will lose their meaning. The old metrics of success, built around productivity and material gain, will fall away. What remains is the art of living itself.

Living well will become our greatest challenge and our most profound opportunity. It will mean finding joy in the everyday, cultivating relationships, pursuing passions, and engaging with the world not because we must, but because we can. It will require us to redefine success, not as accumulation or achievement, but as the quality of our experiences and the depth of our connections.

This new reality demands wisdom, grace, and creativity. It invites us to focus on what truly matters: the bonds we form, the beauty we create, and the meaning we weave into our days. The art of living well is not about doing more or achieving more—it is about being fully present, embracing life’s possibilities, and choosing, time and again, to live with intention and purpose.