Spending time with loved ones doing nothing productive per se is more than waiting for death.

It's living.

There's "boring" and there's "content", and OP is probably talking about the latter. Once you have a family it takes over a lot of the energy you could previously use for work, and that's both expected and desirable.

Eloquent and succintly put. Not everyone is like this I have realized, but to each their own. I would extend a bit, its not easy for me to be not bored. I have to be doing something complex, and someting that takes a lot of time to build up. Hobbies _can_ fill that gap but only when I treat them like work, and I enjoy doing so. Doing something I enjoy for a job is ideal, because it matches what the job expects of my time with how I prefer to use it. I wish I could coast but even doing that leaves not enough time to build up the hard or complex things I derive joy from. I did not used to understand this, and spent the first 25 or so years of my life very unhappy and insecure. When I discovered rigour (etc), I discovered joy. Realisticaly to support a family while also being happy, I need to work a job I enjoy. Of course my happiness isn't owed to me, I feel fortunate to even think of chasing it.