Optimizing for anxiety minimization and joy/meaning maximization is a pretty good alternative. I think it is a good way to be an admirable, productive person without burning yourself out to please others.
> the remedies to which we often turn may themselves be counterproductive because their function is not to alter the larger system which has yielded a state of chronic exhaustion but rather to keep us functioning within it
I assume you're joking... but it's hard to miss how much of corporate life becomes a game of chicken where managers try to find how hard they can push workers before the workers push back - or, to what extent workers will sacrifice rest and their own well-being for continued employment. Of course, the manager has a manager who's pushing them, too.
There are likely many points in a work environment where the local minima and maxima of work output and employee happiness meet. The important thing is to remember that those are balanced in the small, and that a wider perspective may yield a better outcome on both measurements if you care to search for it.
I've recently given up on setting deadlines, shooting for milestones, etc in my hobby programming. I now just do whatever is interesting or fun.
I used to oscillate between highs of productivity and unpleasant lows of anxiety about not making progress. I just started my mindset switch (in progress) so we will see if I'm a generally more pleasant guy this way!
> the remedies to which we often turn may themselves be counterproductive because their function is not to alter the larger system which has yielded a state of chronic exhaustion but rather to keep us functioning within it