Both can be awful.
Just because physical labour is physically tiring, it does not follow that mental labour might not be even more stressful.
I worked farm labour in my 20s and those were some of the best jobs I ever had.
Every meal was a banquet and I slept like a log. Potatoes tasted so good, it was as if I was eating ambrosia.
I also believe that the body and the mind need to be worked together.
The disembodied work typically done in offices is unbalanced, and can be very taxing.
When you live an easier life than 99% of humans, that's worth being grateful for.
Interestingly given the context of this thread, I think the attitude of always needing to be angry, always focusing on negatives, always demanding more, always blaming others and obsessing over grand injustices can itself tip some people into mental illness.
It's a memeplex thing, though. Constant rage at injustice is a great way for a memeplex to turn people into highly-motivated ideological soldiers. It's a technique used by demagogues from Stalin to Hitler to Castro and Kim, and which you see today as well. But the need to always emphasize that rage and injustice and resentment can definitely push some people over the edge. Gratefulness is a good antidote, in proportion with a balanced and contextualized understanding of the problems of the world.
Absolutely, and social media only amplifies these “oppression Olympics”.
There is nothing "easier" in feeling unhappy or angry. Mental illness is widespread across billionaires despite their wealth. It's also well known that mental illness is less common in traditional, less developed societies.
> ... I think the attitude of always needing to be angry ... can itself tip some people into mental illness.
No. People cannot artificially create mental illness in themselves by simply thinking "negatively". There is no simple self-destruct button in our mind: people need to go through (untreated) trauma, pressure, abuse from external sources or diseases or serious genetic conditions.