When you have an open-ended job, you don't get to have a feeling of accomplishment until you finish a task. Because of this, certain forms of manual labor can f

When you have an open-ended job, you don't get to have a feeling of accomplishment until you finish a task. Because of this, certain forms of manual labor can feel more immediately gratifying because they allow you to see a task through to completion. While I think that the work I do as a software developer is better and more personally meaningful work than the work I did stocking shelves in a grocery store (because it validates my previous efforts), I'm not sure that at the end of the work day that I feel more fulfilled than when I was on a grocery stock crew. Being able to exhaust myself physically through work and then doing whatever my mind wants me to do definitely felt better than working while sitting in an office chair all day and trying to find exercises that give me the same sense of satisfaction.