I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job.

There are many psychological needs that jobs often provide for you that you have to sort out yourself when you don't have traditional employement. This is a problem you face through unemployement, but also self-employment and early retirement.

At least in part, it's not so much not having a job as not having daily structure, not having a social context, and lacking a sense of belonging. Lacking these factors will absolutely ruin your mental well-being.

These aren't things that are impossible to find when unemployed (or otherwise not working), but if you've spent most of your life being told what to do, first in school and then at work, you've got some figuring out to do.

That's a little out of touch.

Most people don't have the financial resources to be out of work for a month or two, much less indefinitely. For most people it has nothing to do with the factors you listed.

I've been laid off twice in the past and each time I was fortunate to have enough savings to take several months off of work to relax and unwind. I'd quite happily do it forever if I could afford it. I loved being able to set my own routine, tell myself what to do, and find my own social context and sense of belonging while doing activities that I enjoyed, usually having nothing to do with work, like biking, skiing, creating open source projects, etc.

But watching your bank accounts slowly tick downwards is incredibly stressful, even when you have a long runway, and each time I ended up job hunting sooner than I had planned.

I don't have a job right now. I've been applying about 100 places a month. I just graduated with a phd in a quantitative field and have all the skills of an ml data scientist + my own domain expertise. And, it sucks. I am so broke. I have no money in my bank account now, maybe $7. Family helps me with rent but until then I can't bear to ask them for more money. I've been waiting on unemployment claims to process for a month now, even then the projection is around $150 a week out of that based on my former teaching income. I generally eat 1-2 meals a day these days. Some meals are things like a pile of peanuts or toast with butter. I go to bed hungry many nights. I haven't engaged in any of my hobbies since my teaching contract ended, hiking takes too much time and makes me too hungry and I can't afford to golf right now. Trying to fix my bike so I can start doing postmates with it and bring in some money to not be so dependent on other people while I am in this limbo during the job hunt. I don't have any health insurance right now. Haven't been able to see my therapist due to out of pocket costs. Routine panic attacks and anxiety. Three credit cards maxed out. Falling behind on other bills. Yeah, I'm in bad shape. Hoping things turn around for me soon. The silver lining is the jobs I'm qualified for would pay me at least 10k a month if I manage to land one. Four months of that I'll have all my debt paid off and be out of this hole.

> I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job.

I would be perfectly happy without a job. It's the income I'm concerned about.

>I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job.

Partly true. But today there is no way to live off the land either, as people used to in the past by raising cattle and pigs. Either it's illegal or you owe the govt taxes.

What are you talking about? That's not the issue for most people. For most people the issue is that if you don't have a job for long enough, the government will send people to throw you out on the streets to suffer and die.