a good job is one that brings you joy and improves your creativitiy, they by definition can't be in hell. if you mean well paying, that's a different thing entirely, ditch the fancy car and adjust your lifestyle
I have a fancy car? News to me. I'm just trying to pay my bills and live a sensible and reasonably comfortable life. These days that requires a lot of money.
mind you given the topic of the article I took the jobs in question to mean largely in the software industry, not talking about minimum wage workers here.
But as a programmer I am quite baffled when peers my age, often without kids struggle in this kind of way. My essentials are rent, food, metro card, library card. When I hear people who make what I make say that living requires a lot of money that usually includes two dozen subscriptions, a few grand in useless electronics per year and ordering food most of the week.
So, are you suggesting that an acceptable lifestyle would be an empty studio apartment with nothing inside of it, no pets, no partner, no meaningful possessions?
Personally, I have pets, a partner, and thoughtfully selected and meaningful possessions. I don't collect crap, and nothing I own or do is particularly extravagant. But I'm not exactly living an ascetic life either. A pretty typical lifestyle, I'd say. And I don't consider any of this a moral failure, if that's what you're getting at. Though admittedly it's not as affordable as living like a monk.
I don't advocate living like a monk. I play in a band and play football every weekend, play chess, you can go to church, most of that is practically free.
I'm very much in favour of participating in culture, real culture though. You can ditch the 1k Taylor Swift tickets, Disneyland visits, and high end gym for the 20 bucks local jazz festival.
I think the people who live socially like ascetic monks are ironically the people who build themselves a home gym for 10k and then complain about not having any time for friends because everything is too expensive
I'll be in my home for longer than the recession lasts. Seems a little silly to sell it and walk away from my hard-earned lifestyle (which I quite enjoy) to save some money for just a few years.