It's not unsubstantive in my opinion. It's just an expression of my opinion, which is questioning the thought of making no difference of personal and business goals combined with an emotional component (sadness).
This reply is already more substantive than a mere "That's sad", which may or may not have any thought behind it. If you fleshed it out a bit more into a thoughtful point, you'd have a good HN comment.
Merely stating an opinion doesn't count as substantive. There needs to be something to interest the reader.
I don't believe in overwork, nor do I believe it is sad. There's a big difference working 70-hour weeks achieving the goals you've set for yourself, and working that much to avoid getting fired.
When I see you use "That's patronizing", I feel conflicted because it seems to be in the same evaluative style as "That's sad". I am not sure if it's constructive to use a style being criticized against a person.
(this is me practicing nonviolent communication or something :)
That's fair--it sounds like you're saying a person receiving criticism should be resilient to that criticism to some extent. I'm interested in hearing what you think the solution (if any) is for the person giving the criticism.
(to be clear, I don't feel offended by the parent comment)
Because there are vast range of experiences beyond the world of work which can fill and enrich a human life. To be not engaged in the rest of the world is to live a half life. No one died regretting time no spent at work or money unmade
Here's one example of a situation where I could very easily see someone regretting not spending more time at work.
As a professional creative, I'm betting there are a fair number of authors, film directors, screenwriters and so on who died regretting they didn't finish their latest work, or didn't spend more time on the thing they really wanted to make. That's work.