Due to an inheritance of barely-enough money, I got to retire at age 55. I might need to go back to work in a few years, I don’t know yet. But, I’ve very much enjoyed doing practically nothing even though I’d like to have enough to travel, etc. which I don’t. I do miss the collaboration on solving problems, but I don’t miss the raft of other bullshit “office politics” that goes along with that. The one does not make up for the other, not even close. Neither do I miss putting aside my occasional moral misgivings about a project in exchange for money. Nor do I miss watching the boss/owner make obviously stupid decisions and then watching the fallout, after not listening to me or anyone else.

Finding a perfect job is not going to happen for the vast majority of us. We make do with what we can get, and often that causes long-term stress that is unhealthy.

What desire I have to “be useful” or “contribute” and the pleasure I sometimes got from a job well done pales in comparison to the daily stress of working. Even low-level long-term stress takes a big toll over time. And, none of us are compensated nearly enough in money or time off to mitigate that.

People want to work, and want to contribute and collaborate, and feel useful. But, the work society we’ve allowed to be set up for us is not for that. It’s for wringing every last second of useful to-the-rich effort out of us, while compensating us at the minimum level we’ll accept without chopping their heads off, with the rest going to them. Generation after generation for the past 80 years, they’ve been compensating us less and demanding more. Now we’re close to being virtually enslaved, owning nothing and working to barely survive, assuming we’re healthy enough to do so, otherwise being discarded.

Humans are social animals, and we want to feel useful to and accepted by the group.

Furthermore, some amount of work is always required to survive. It’s pretty naturally baked into our brains.

There are jobs with flexible hours and partial or full work from home arrangements, and more importantly jobs where you can feel some amount of purpose and personal growth instead of just making money (mostly for someone else, i.e. shareholders). To get such a job you might have to get some specialized skill, or just get lucky.

Try to get a job you enjoy. For example I had a friend who liked tinkering with cars, he got a job as a auto mechanic. Some days he would be tired after work but on most Saturdays he would still be outside replacing/installing something on his own car.

I liked fixing things and solving problems. The joy when everything worked as it should and the machine started up. Having a problem in mind and breaking it down to separate components then understanding how it all interconnected and then seeing where the failure was. My favorite job was as a engineering technician.

I worked with someone who was going through a rough patch of life(had back issues due to previous job, his wife left him and they were fighting over custody). He straight up told the manager he just wanted a basic job that didn’t require him to think and he could just get into a zone of work. He was given such a job, basically put unit in machine one, press start, take unit out, clean off burrs with file, blow off with compressed air, put unit in machine two, take unit out and pass it to next station. He didn’t know how the machines worked or did he want to. He would call me over when something went wrong or the machines weren’t working right. That said holy shit could he put out a lot of work. His average was about 1.5 times what was expected out of most people, his peak was over 2 times.

Don’t make your favorite hobby your career or you will likely end up with both a hobby and job you hate. Find something adjacent to your favorite hobby.

I don’t want to work in order to survive but I want to be productive and keep my mind and body sharp while also contributing to the community. I like my job and while it seems mundane, it keeps me busy, gives me routine, gives my brain problems to solve, and is sometimes the most socializing I get. I just hate that I have to be afraid to lose my job or end up hungry or homeless because of it.

I guess its more the need to. I would Work less If affordable.

I have colleagues I Look up to. Most of the time I Work independently, without a Manager interrupting.

I’m a slave to capitalism. I want to eat and not live in a box on a street.

I also like playing video games. Kind of hard to play video games if you live in a box on the street.

Don’t worry, thanks to climate change and unchecked corporate capitalism, you’ll most likely not be able to work at one place for 40 years.

If you are in America and a legal adult, go see a doctor, try to get diagnosed with something that counts towards disability, then try to stay employed for at least 10 years then claim disability (generally about 10 years but look up the SSA rules for specifics), which will allow you avoid work and recieve a small amount of money that’s generally impossible to live off of and severely limits what you can actually do and gives you free (but mediocre) healthcare. I haven’t worked since the last day of 2019 because my new years resolution for 2020 was to not work anymore. I’m currently 43. I have ADHD, dyscalculia and I’m Bipolar.

If that’s not your thing, start your own business, doesn’t matter what and you don’t need to actually have any revenue, just start it so you have it on paper that it exists. Then while you figure out how to stay alive using other means, you might get lucky and find some corporate dick who wants power that will buy your company for a ludicrous amount without actually knowing that you have no revenue ot staff or a product or any services. They just need it as a shell company anyways, so they can launder money and avoid paying taxes.

One other angle and the most legal and honorable one to try, is determine your two favorite hobbies. Turn one into your job focus and the other becomes the one you continue to enjoy in your free time. This method allows you to also have a backup, in case the job hobby doesn’t work out. Eventually the hobby you still enjoy, if you still enjoy it, can be converted into a source of funding, provided you continually improve in it and network with other people who also enjoy it.

I had the same dread when I was your age. In hindsight I can see a lot of it was because my childhood sucked therefore my perspective on life sucked. I just didn’t know any different then. When I moved away on my own everything changed. I actually enjoyed being an adult and it all came down to freedom. I was in charge of me. I could do whatever I wanted, good or bad. Having to work to support that freedom suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

Going to the same place 5 days a week

A lot of jobs involve travel, on a variety of scales. My brother is a civil engineer and is on a different site every week. I personally like the routine of going to the same place, but that’s not a requirement for employment.

coming home with no time and energy left

I mean, that sucks. But you don’t necessarily have to work that many hours or that demanding a job. I do work a physically and emotionally demanding job; I prefer to work on personal projects and household tasks during the day, go to my job in the evenings, and then it doesn’t matter that I come home tired; I go right to bed.

for anything you actual like

A lot of people like their job. Another respondent said she wouldn’t do her job for free; I probably would if I could afford to. It makes me happy. I can’t afford to and am pretty zealous about making sure I earn a competitive rate, but I even enjoy that aspect, the competition of it.

doing this for FOURTY years or even more

I mean, it doesn’t have to be the same work that while time. At forty, I’ve been a programmer, a teacher, a waitress, and a full-time parent. I’m thinking about picking up a trade, becoming an electrician or a carpenter or a plumber. As long as you keep learning and keep experimenting, you’ll have an interesting life.

Important distinction between “working” and “having a job”. You do a job for someone else. You should always be working for yourself. Labor for ones own ends in enjoyable. Labor for someone else is a means to an end. Recognize it is something to balance and balance it the best you can for the life you want to have.

Most people want to feel productive. Forty hours is too much but almost nobody wants to only sit on the bank that is depressing in the long run.

There is dignity in contributing to society, I do something I’m reasonably good at and therefore enjoy doing, my colleagues are friendly and decent people, it puts a roof over my head, food on the table, and something in the piggy bank for a rainy day.

Find something you genuinely enjoy doing.

Also, having moneyz is nice.

The question is, what else would you be doing with your time?

There are two layers in this question.
In the literal sense, they want to work because it does something for them. For some, work is means to an end. They want to do X but they can’t survive on profits from doing X so they spend some time working to do the thing that they feel actually adds meaning to their life. The other layer of this is the fear you are experiencing because you are staring into an abstract void. ‘Work’ can mean many, many different things. Quick peek at your Lemmy history says you have some interest in books. What if it was your ‘work’ to spend hours each day getting paid to read books, as an audio book reader, a literary editor, or something similar? What if it was your ‘work’ to spend hours each day being paid to write books as an author, or a journalist? Work can be hellish if you end up doing something you hate, for and with people you hate, to produce something you feel is making the world a worse place to live. It can also be a process of going somewhere pleasant, to do things you enjoy, with and for people you like, to produce something that you feel makes the world a better place. Work is just the label on the box. It doesn’t tell you much about what’s inside.