I have finally been winning the battle against that subroutine, and I still stomp that shit into the ground any time it makes a peep.

That's great. I still hear it every now and then, and it never ends up making me feel better. It just starts turning whatever I'm doing into a job.

The only thing that's worked for me is separating the jobs I do just for money to survive into like their own category. And then thinking of everything else (even if it's actually very productive in non money ways) as a sort of "play" where anything is allowed, because I make the rules when I'm not on a job.

A parallel to this issue that still irks the shit out of me is the "huh... smart!" reaction when somebody takes the most greedy path possible. It gets to the point where generosity is a character flaw because it makes you a sucker and not a winner.

Omg yes, that's its own weird societal pathology. It's like we've assimilated the twisted values of the "clever" exec-sociopath type into our cultural script. That's also part of what I've come to understand falls under "financialization."