[t1lthesky]

As a guy in his mid-20s working in a high-pressure, high-paying 9-8 job...

Its all a tradeoff. Yeah I'm working very hard during the week - I don't really have time for anything besides work+gym during weekdays, and some weekends I need to work as well. BUT I'm able to provide for my single mother, live in a very nice area in my city, travel wherever I want to go on vacation, eat at nice restaurants, buy expensive toys, etc etc. Coming from a family where the the nicest place we ever went out to eat was hometown buffet, this financial freedom is pretty damn great.

Plus I would argue that I actually have more freedom to do what I want to do during my free time, despite having less of it. I went to NYC for a weekend last week, was in vegas 2 weeks before, and I'm traveling to Japan over Christmas and NYE to snowboard in Hokkaido. You just cant do stuff like that if you don't have any money, especially when you need to help support your family.

Anyway just my 2 cents. Every job has a varying degree of intensity, and mine, despite the long hours needed, is still pretty flexible in terms of when I can take time off and such.