Camus isn't simply saying that choosing your own job makes you happier—he's identifying something deeper about human identity itself. When work is imposed, you become a tool in someone else's design; when freely accepted, you become the author of your own labor, and that authorship is what confers dignity. The distinction matters because it explains why someone might find meaning in difficult, underpaid work they've chosen, while feeling utterly degraded by easier work they were forced into. A nurse who fought for her position experiences something categorically different from an enslaved person performing identical medical tasks—not in the tasks themselves, but in the freedom that transformed labor into agency.