I think there is a balance to be had.
As a previous poster says, there is a wage below which you won't be able to live the minimum standard of living. You find acceptable. This differs for each person, but you should be able to identify the minimum house size and rough standard of living and their costs that would feel acceptable.
Then you need a job that will deliver at least that. Beyond that you have some flexibility. It is always a case of weighing the extra earnings from a job against the journey, stress, elements you don't like etc etc.
Personally, I do a reasonably paid job that I don't hugely enjoy. Because I am part if a household income made up of what myself and DH bring in, the key thing for us is our family income and not the individual elements of it. We know the standard of life we are happy with and what it costs to provide that, plus to include savings etc which we value too. Once we have done enough work to reach that level, then we stop. This essentially means we are able to work part-time. Sometimes our target income has been higher or lower depending on particular outgoings and in light of that we have increased or reduced our hours.
Having a target income is very helpful. It needs to include your lifestyle choices but also include things like pension contributions, savings etc that you consider key to your longer term financial planning. Lots of people never reach this target income and so they are always driven to take a more highly paid job even if they don't enjoy it. However, if you can be happy on a smaller amount, it certainly gives more flexibility and working and that might include things like when to retire.
Some people are easily satisfied and small inesoensive things give them pleasure. They can often choose their work, reduce their hours and retire early. Sounds good! Others are never satisfied but always want more and so constantly have to look for promotion or to do more work, and it's made even worse if they live beyond their means and have debt which forces them even more to chase higher salaries to lay it off.
I think it's good to try to live within your means now and if you aspire to a higher standard of living to seek it through higher paid work, but not allow yourself the standard of living until you can afford it.
Certain things like reducing your mortgage by over-paying or getting rid of the mortgage through over-paying can also mean that later there are far more choices. Doing this can mean private schooling can become an option, or retiring early, or moving to a bigger house later, or having a lomg period of part time work, or taking an easier job at some point. Just having the choices is very liberating, even if they aren't chosen and these choices are highly valued and bring a lot of peace of mind to many people. But doing this over-paying of the mortgage etc is almost the reverse of living beyond ones means and not being satisfied but chasing a bigger lifestyle. There's always a choice of whether to spend today or save today so you can spend more in future. Some people go for extremes at either end which probably aren't that healthy for most.
Re-assessing what you want from life and the value you place on different material possessions is a good idea. It will help you see what you really value and the lifestyle you need to fund. You can consider if you want;
- new cars every 3 years
- expensive cars
- several holidays
- expensive holidays
- large house in expensive area
- private education
- large pension fund
- lots of new clothes or expensive clothes
- regular home upgrades suchbas new kitchens
- regular furniture replacement
- expensive hobbies and interests
- lots of eating out or takeaways
- expensive socialising
- large savings
- money set by for university or children's house deposit
People value different things.