> You can have good pay and good working conditions, but you have to work to find it and keep it
The existential unhappiness of work is from depending on it for your livelihood.
As PP described, he was perfectly happy with his job until he became dependent on it and no longer had the ability to walk away at any time without caring about the financial consequences.
Among other things, as you indicate, as soon as you become dependent on your job financially, you take on an additional, and unhappiness-inducing, maintenance burden of constantly working to keep your job and then working to find a replacement job when your job changes or vanishes due to business conditions or the economy.
(And, of course, the work becomes something that you have to do, which creates reactance, etc..)
The existential unhappiness of work is from depending on it for your livelihood.
As PP described, he was perfectly happy with his job until he became dependent on it and no longer had the ability to walk away at any time without caring about the financial consequences.
Among other things, as you indicate, as soon as you become dependent on your job financially, you take on an additional, and unhappiness-inducing, maintenance burden of constantly working to keep your job and then working to find a replacement job when your job changes or vanishes due to business conditions or the economy.
(And, of course, the work becomes something that you have to do, which creates reactance, etc..)