MIke asked:

What is the relationship between happiness and work?

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There probably isn't a direct relation between work and happiness except in the most extraordinary
cases. The relation is probably via fulfilment. You cannot be happy in any deep sense without
fulfilment. Freud described work as a 'path' to happiness. He noted that work is a source of
satisfaction only where it is freely chosen, and sadly this probably isn't the normal case. Even then he
talks of 'professional activity' and not manual labour.

While in Civilisation and Its DiscontentsFreud said that man doesn't prize work very highly as a path
to happiness and tends to work because of necessity, in The Future of an Illusionhe says that
civilisation rests on a 'compulsion' to work. Rather a contradiction. I don't think people feel, in the
main, compelled to do a job. For Freud, the impulse to work is a sublimation of sexual instincts. That
is, the impulse to work displaces erotic instincts and provides satisfaction through being involved in
reality, or the human community. However, Freud claimed that persons differ and the man who is
predominantly erotic will prefer to seek the path to happiness through relationships, whereas a
narcissistic man will seek satisfaction in his mental processes. Furthermore, he urges people not to
seek satisfaction from a single aspiration.

When we work from necessity, this is because we need money. But there are all sorts of other ways
in which we can look at work. It might be bringing up the children or doing the gardening, and in this
sense most people are compelled to work because we naturally seek fulfilment and strive for
happiness.

Rachel Browne