Sick Days and Happiness

I've had this on my mind for years. What if you made a graph of sickness versus happiness with respect to paid sick days? Here's my first good attempt. Your graph may be different than mine because:

1. I have paid sick days.
2. I feel some duty to my work.
3. I like my job a fair bit.

There's a lot of info and labels there so let's unpack it.

• Suck-it-up Slump: Sick but not sick enough for a sick day. A slow and tiring work day.
• Trough of Loyalty: A just barely justified paid sick day but you feel kind of bad about it because you're not super sick.
• Benefit Misalignment Blues: Being medium-sick on a weekend feels like a wasted opportunity to use a sick day. Plus, you lose your weekend.
• Pre-Clarity Penalty: You'd be happier if healthy and working, but you aren't sick enough to start thinking that way.
• Nexus of Introspection: You realize you'd be happier if healthy and working. Weekday or weekend no longer matters. You take a moment for yourself, you're mindful of the present, and realize health is what's most important in life.
• Fall to Passivity: Interactive leisure like video games and creative activities become difficult to enjoy.
• Zombification: Passive leisure like movies, reading, audiobooks, and television become difficult to enjoy.

Hate Your Job?

I happen to like my current job a fair bit which changes the height of the "nexus of introspection" meaning "I'd rather be healthy and work". If you truly hate your job, you may even be happier well past the "fall to passivity" than at work. Also, the upward jump in happiness when you take a sick day would be taller.

No Sense of Duty?

If you don't feel a sense of duty, loyalty, or purpose with your job then the horizontal gap separating "maybe can't work" and "definitely can't work" is smaller, or could even disappear entirely. The moment you realize you're reasonably sick enough you'd say screw it, call in sick, no regrets.

Leisure: Interactive and Passive

My dip after losing interactive leisure is bigger than when I lose passive leisure. How about you?

Nexus Position

The vertical position of my "nexus of introspection" is at the same height as "perfectly healthy and working" on the far left. This implies I have perfect self-awareness to know when I've reached this point. That makes sense when you realize I'm the kind of person to make this graph.

Conclusion

What do you think? Did I miss anything?