I don’t think “work” in this sense means a job. It means whatever you put effort toward in order to accomplish something that’s important to you. There is a generally held belief that meaningful work—which for most of us is not our paid employment—is one of the essentials for a satisfying life. That kind of work, yes, I’d agree is necessary for happiness. It is the opposite of indolence, hedonism, and self-indulgence, which are the way to despair.
It seems to me that the most fortunate people are those who would choose the same work and dedicate themselves to it whether they were paid or not. They are doing what they love, and in a very real sense that kind of work is indistinguishable from play. I listened to a group of world-class cosmic physicists on the radio this morning, and from their talk I knew they were such people. So are many artists, physicians, teachers, and craftspeople. But not very many office workers, clerks, service people, and assembly-line workers.
I think one of the great tragedies of our modern high-tech world is that so few people do have meaningful work. Most of what we work with is not real. It has no substance and no relation to life, and we never get a sense of completeness or worthwhile achievement. It is nothing but little virtual words and numbers and images that we push around on screens. Every morning and evening I drive past huge buildings in Silicon Valley and think about the fact that each of them is full of thousands of people doing things that are not real and have no meaning, and it is a disturbing thought. Of those, only a few are truly loving what they do. The rest—well, what kind of a world do we create when we hate our lives, live for escape, and self-medicate to endure the intervals, and what are we showing our children?
I am not sure about love. I think it matters more to some than others. But I do think you need your basic bodily needs met, or happiness is still a stretch.