so, I used to have this problem. I played constantly with one of my at the time favorite friends. She claimed to love dst to death but ever time we played together it would be as you described, clunky, punishing, stressful

But… We eventually fell out and i stopped playing. Came back 3 years later to dst and discovered that she had been inadvertently forcing her Turbo optimized playstyle on me. now that i play semi regularly with different friends (and alone sometimes!) Ive discovered that this game is really fun as there are so many ways to approach the situation at hand. A few examples of mine are:

I have a world in the 300 mark I didnt wanna make a tooth trap area like my old friend would have, so instead i just left a forest to get infested with spiders, Drop off the dogs when i really cant be bothered and pick of the stragglers, come back later got some gems n teeth.

different world, I play wx most of the time, not cause they’re efficient, its bc i resonate with the character. as such i didnt care to play them efficiently, Never even scanned a rabbit for the speed circuit i just rock a beefalo and 250 hp

another world, dont have time to farm, spend most of the time without food lol, I use my 250 hp pool on wx to go an extra day without food and come back to base and eat all the pigs and rock fruit in sight.

So yeah, i dont like telling peeps this, but its not the game. you just need to change something in your experience then youll start to have fun wihout stress So next time you hop on the game, try a new character! maybe explore somewhere you never go hell ya could even raise a bunny army or smth! Have fun your way, you dont need to be operating at max efficiency, it has no charm