The problem is not about being hard working or not hard working. It is about the constraints around that hard work; or lack thereof. In late modern labor society the normativity is to achieve in itself, without any philosophical or ethical constraints that grounds achievement in real meaning. It is a pick-and-choose buffet of values and priorities, that is individually curated - rather than also being synchronized with others, the past and the future - and there is only one rule, that you have to achieve.

The grammar of achievement is performance and excess. Everything is possible, and you must exploit yourself while trying to exhaust the possibilities. Except you can't and therefore it is a slow burn spiritual suicide, until you burnout, get into depression, have autoimmune problems etc and hopefully get a wakeup call. Except your therapist is not going to tell you to take it easy either, because they can't come up with any answer to lack of meaning other than work (and maybe to get a family) either.

Not that there is any evil conspiring forces that have set this up, but it also happens having people exploit themselves in the name of achievement yields more than being exploited by someone else directly; to be told what and what not to do all the time is unnecessary when people are equally capable of auto-exploitation. Everyone carries little walking labor camps in themselves.