https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/work-life-balance-happiness/

I found the above, really good article on Big Think. Apparently eudaimonic happiness is a concept that work and, in general, making an effort is what makes us happy. It doesn’t necessarily apply to every person, as some of us prefer hedonic happiness, which is basically having fun. The article states, however ‘there really is such a thing as too much free time’ and we are less happy when we have more than 5h of free time a day.

I do agree with this here, I was off work for over a year and I felt like my wellbeing was threatened a lot. Now I work 24h a week and I feel significantly better, even though I am recovering from psychotic episode and still occasionally suffer anxiety. I was actually considering asking to up my hours or at least do some overtime occasionally because, I do somehow feel like I have too much free time!

The third type of happiness is experiential happiness; which is ‘sampling unique but potentially unpleasant or even painful experiences’ – that is probably not for me, I like peace and quiet and also warmth!

Hedonistic happiness is also not necessarily that much for me either as having fun often involves other people, but even reading book purely for fun seems to be a waste of time for me, although obviously I had some hedonistic experiences in the past, I even consumed alcohol for fun on a couple of occasions (I was very young then, like 20+).

Most of the time I’d definitely say work is what gives my life meaning, but I also want to see that my effort improves other people’s lifes immediately, and that’s why I like working in care.