There are two issues with your argument: 1) Money doesn't equate to happiness - economists have shown this. It increases up to an annual income of about $60,00

There are two issues with your argument: 1) Money doesn't equate to happiness - economists have shown this. It increases up to an annual income of about $60,000 then flat lines completely. So yes you need to have a solid income, but the point extra stops making a difference comes surprisingly early. 2) Even if that weren't true you've turned in into something of an all or nothing situation (I may have misunderstood here in which case forgive me). There are obviously levels within everything - yes you could work the least you can get away with or work 100 hours a week and always be on call, but you could also work 40 hours a week and take regular holidays, or work flat our for a couple of months then take a month off. Maybe some of us are spending too much time on cake acquisition. If we spent less time doing that we may not have such a large cake but we would at least be able to eat the smaller cake that we had.