I think the saying “money doesn’t bring happiness” is one of those unlearnable lessons - something you’ll never truly believe until you experience it firsthand.
I’m self-employed contractor and find my work quite meaningful, yet I still dream of living off passive income and never having to work again. But honestly, I’m almost certain my life would spiral out of control if that ever became reality. Work is what the rest of my life is built around - it’s why I get up in the morning. I’d like to think I’d find meaning elsewhere, and maybe that’s true, but I’m skeptical. I’m almost certainly just kidding myself when I think that I would. I'd just sit at home smoking weed and watching YouTube videos.
I don’t think work itself is the problem - it’s the soul-crushing drudgery people are forced to endure to survive, where there’s no sense of meaning or gratitude. Especially in jobs where you can’t even see the results of what you’ve done. If you’re sweeping streets, at least you’re outdoors, you talk to people, and at the end of the day you can see what you accomplished. But if you spend eight hours entering numbers into Excel in a toxic office environment, then of course it feels meaningless.