I've realized this pretty early on after I got out of school.
I got a degree, I got a finished apprenticeship, I worked for a few years in a decent company. It wasn't the worst thing that it could be, but it also didn't bring me any joy. I only went because it was expected of me to work and because I didn't want to end up on the street due to a lack of money.
But working didn't make me happy.
When I lost my job and I regained my freedom, I realized just how much I despised work. How a lot of my depression, tiredness and general lack of drive went away almost instantly. I actually wanted to do things again. I had time to pursue my hobbies, to create things, to learn new stuff … to actually live.
Now I'm horrified with the idea of working again.
It's not laziness. I love being productive. The problem is, work doesn't provide me with any satisfaction, I don't want to put my energy and focus into work because it doesn't interest me even a little bit. It feels like a waste of my time. I feel like I'm spend half of my life doing something that I don't enjoy, and isn't life too precious for that? Shouldn't life be there for us to do what we actually like and want to do?
I never understood people that said they need a job to feel fulfilled or like they have a purpose or that they would feel bored without a job. There's so many things I want and could do with all this free time. I would never get bored of this. And to me, the purpose of life is living a good life, filled with beautiful memories and experiences … and work just doesn't number among those things. If anything, work makes me feel depressed, tired, like I'm investing my life into something not worth investing in.
It doesn't help that work culture has just become more and more absurd.