https://mises.org/library/disutility-laborMises wrote about the "disutility of labor". The opposite of utility. Basically work is doing something you would rather not do in exchange for pay. If it were fun enough to do for free, there would be no need to pay you.
I guess this is just Economics 101 or Life 101, but I had a hard time accepting it for many years. I was looking for a career to be my meaning of life. My purpose. I had nothing to do on the weekend, so I lived for the week.
But looking back on it, its kind of absurd. I can't find happiness and fun for free. I can't even find it by paying money. But now I expect the boss to pay me, to give me meaning, purpose, joy, fun.
Or at the very least a job with no disutility. Like being a security guard that just reads, watches TV and plays vidya all day. Paid to be a hikki neet.
I guess you could say it makes me spoiled and priviledged. But I'm not a robot. Without any of my spiritual needs fulfilled, I can't just be a survival machine.
But I realize no career is ever going to satisfy me, because I'm demanding too much of it. I'm demanding they pay me, to give me purpose. And if I can't find that on the weekend for free, why the hell would I get paid for it?
My life is just empty, and I expect my career to fill that void. When really the best I can hope for is a fair exchange of work to profit. Work is where you make cash to buy joy and meaning on your own leisure time.
I expected a job to give me a meaning of life, which isn't fair to jobs, its just there to exchange cash for disutility