This sums up how I felt working as a Disability Analyst at Social Security. Great hours, no meetings, good enough pay, excellent benefits--but I felt like my life was being slowly siphoned away. Talk about a lifeless setting--the opposite of anything resembling the natural world. I thought being a teacher would solve this, and it didn't, and now I have an M.Ed and never want to teach again. I sunk money into more education but I agree with the sunk fallacy model, and there's no way I'm stepping foot in a classroom again. Now, in a post-Covid world, I found freelance writing....but if I'm honest, this is a subsidized income because my husband has a 9-5 paycheck. If I had to make a living this way I'd be churning out copy in order to make enough $$ to live. On the other hand--it won't kill anyone to step off the hamster wheel and try making a go of it as a freelancer.