Your question implies that there is a right answer and there isn't. I think your question is more accurately stated, "why doesn't everyone think or feel like m

Your question implies that there is a right answer and there isn't. I think your question is more accurately stated, "why doesn't everyone think or feel like me?" Dedicating one's life to one's work (including long hours) can be very high quality: if you have an active interest in what you do, pride in what you produce, and you see yourself as not just doing some task that some employeer/customer told you to do, but you see your work and its output as symbolic of your own personal standards, then the rewards are more than sufficient payoff for the time spent. And the time spent itself can be quite pleasurable, too, even if time spent is very high. Of course, if you've not managed to find something in life that both makes you feel that way and allows you sustenance, you're probably going to ask the very question you did. Human experience is simply more broad than that.