The majority of people don't have that luxury, and very few have it throughout their whole career. The lucky ones should be grateful this label does not apply to them and not feel insulted by the less fortunate.
Or you should realize that it's called work because it's not fun and you can still enjoy and appreciate it. You think only people with rare amazing unicorn jobs enjoy work? Go drive a cab. Bartend. Work long hours for a startup you care about. Yes you can complain it sucks, but that's why it's called work. Learning how to enjoy it is the same as learning how to be good at it - and better at life.
This luxury you speak of as if it exists in some jobs is completely in your own mind.
Put another way, the only thing preventing you from enjoying that luxury right now, whatever you do, is a shitty attitude.
Sometimes it just accomplishes paying your rent so you can do your life's work on the side.
You can have a life of the mind at work, or you can have a mindless job and have your life of mind in your off hours. It's almost impossible to have both.
What's wrong with working in construction? I worked restaurants and bars and taxis throughout my 20s, but my best friend worked construction. He's an amazing writer and the lead singer for the band I was in. He didn't hate his work. It's an honest job.
You want to work on your house and prep your food? I am the complete opposite. I would rather work on building a website, and eat in a canteen, than work on my house or my food.
Been building websites for 20 years, and writing code, studying math, building electronics since the 80s. Along with building homes from foundation up, rebuilding cars... Hedonic treadmill; individually, none of those things are enough anymore.
For me having to put so much time into riding a tightly focused job escalator is hell.
I can relate to this... I've been supporting myself for 30 years building apps and websites by the hour, for hourly wages, while working on my own years and years long projects on the side which make no money. I count 8 of them which took at least a year to code, and only 2 which made a small amount of profit. But I think this is actually a pretty great arrangement. I consider myself lucky to work in a kitchen all the time and still have the spare time to try building my own restaurant. I don't look at it as getting paid to waste my time, I look at it as getting paid to improve my skills, and to see the things that other people are missing, the gaps I might be able to improve upon.
Don't tell me you don't have time to do your daily web job and also work on your house. That's a first world problem if I've ever heard one.
