If anything they found escape and respite in working on their education, and having hope and a direction to work towards increased their subjective well-being.
I think there’s a useful distinction to be made here between general mental state and specific moment-to-moment emotional experiences. Working on something, that gives hope and respite from a feeling of helplessness, increases overall well-being in the general sense, but doesn’t fully make up for the difficulties and annoyances that crop up while doing the work day after day after day, so in the moment it’s still pain that dominates their experience. (So maybe here is part of the answer to applying this advice in these situations—if what you’re working on improves general life satisfaction, even if it’s painful at the moment, then that’s an indication that you’re doing it right. Although, caveats: (A) it’s often difficult in these situations to tell if your life satisfaction is improving or not, both because −49 to −45 isn’t as easily felt as 2 to 6, and your life is unstable and fluctuating enough that there isn’t much of a reliable base state to compare to, and (B) this is more an indication of whether you’ve made the right strategic decisions—right course or career path that you feel good about - whereas I think the original point of the advice, and its maximum effectiveness IMO, is regarding tactical low-level decisions.)
I agree with your final paragraph entirely. Pain isn’t a reliable unit of effort beyond a point, even in these contexts. Over time, it starts growing super-linearly for linear effort.
I think there’s a useful distinction to be made here between general mental state and specific moment-to-moment emotional experiences. Working on something, that gives hope and respite from a feeling of helplessness, increases overall well-being in the general sense, but doesn’t fully make up for the difficulties and annoyances that crop up while doing the work day after day after day, so in the moment it’s still pain that dominates their experience. (So maybe here is part of the answer to applying this advice in these situations—if what you’re working on improves general life satisfaction, even if it’s painful at the moment, then that’s an indication that you’re doing it right. Although, caveats: (A) it’s often difficult in these situations to tell if your life satisfaction is improving or not, both because −49 to −45 isn’t as easily felt as 2 to 6, and your life is unstable and fluctuating enough that there isn’t much of a reliable base state to compare to, and (B) this is more an indication of whether you’ve made the right strategic decisions—right course or career path that you feel good about - whereas I think the original point of the advice, and its maximum effectiveness IMO, is regarding tactical low-level decisions.)
I agree with your final paragraph entirely. Pain isn’t a reliable unit of effort beyond a point, even in these contexts. Over time, it starts growing super-linearly for linear effort.