Oh man, it's been the complete opposite for me the older I get. Cooking has now become a pretty relaxing activity, but I think that's because I've gotten more confident and skilled with my knife, prep, cooking, and cleaning abilities that I can really just focus more on the joy and experience of making delicious things for both myself and the people I love.
It's probably one of the only true forms of self love that I engage in.
But for real, learning to clean as I cook was probably the most important skill I developed that has seriously reduced how painful cooking used to be for me. There's no giant mess at the end and really, once you get good at it, you'll find that there's hardly any big daunting cleanup (unless you're making a large family dinner or a finicky dish).
Cooking is not worth it if you live alone; limited fridge/freezer space and stuff being sold in larger quantities than I need means most of the ingredients won't get used fully and I end up throwing away something anyway or have to eat it for three days straight.
It may not be an option if you're severely restricted on space but it helps if you make enough to freeze a couple extra portions of food and eat them weeks later. Generally when you are cooking for yourself it's healthier than processed or restaurant food and it's cheaper. I tend to gravitate to international markets where they have bulk bins of vegetables so you are able to just buy a single carrot, single potato etc. Cooking in slightly larger portions and shopping that way really helps to reduce waste for myself.
I have like a "babys first playschool refrigerator/freezer" thing that basically belongs in a camper, but I make it work. The key for me is to cook things kinda "basic" as in limited, generic, seasoning and then spice it up how I want when I'm ready to eat it so it doesn't get boring. Then as others mentioned you cook all in one day. I make a chicken dish in the slow cooker that lasts a week in the fridge, so you shouldn't need a freezer for your weeks worth of food.
I buy a family pack of chicken and separate a few breasts to stick in my tiny ass freezer that doesn't even have room for a normal size ice cream tub, I freeze a few rolls, and anything else like vegetables is generally canned so I don't need to worry about waste.
I think it depends on how many guests you have for the post-cleanup. However, I generally agree with you.
I sometimes get on my partner's or family members case about things left around when we're waiting for the oven or something and they're like: "I'll just do it at the end". For big meals, the large dish rack plus the dish washer (which seems to be another dish rack for us) almost always gets over crowded and we need to use those drying pads.
Potato peelers exist and they're the best fucking invention ever. It's like $15 max on Amazon. The ones for apples work on potatoes too just FYI. Yeah you still gotta cut it unless you get another gimmicky kitchen device but anything is better than hand peeling potatoes imo