Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.
Entropy is the normal state of consciousness - a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.
People without an internalized symbolic system can all too easily become captives of the media.
Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.
A person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free.
It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.