You get the idea. Nothing small like this basically matters. I'm well into my seventh decade and enjoying the ride, doing what I can to improve the situation but not getting too attached to stuff.
IOW, your natural instincts largely worked because your environment supported a fairly high quality lifestyle.
This is not close to true anymore. Our natural instincts and daily lives have been hijacked beyond recognition.
With WFH, for example, people may go days without having walked beyond the distance it takes to go from their bed to their desk, or if they're lucky, from their bedroom to the home office.
Yeah, we get it: you're independently wealthy and doesn't need to work, nor have timelines imposed on your days.
Or, you don't really do all those things "when you feel like it" (and the above is what you'd like to do).
Or, you do them "when you feel like to", but this surprisingly coincides with your free time and holidays...
No fourth option, iirc
The high stress lifestyle is definitely a choice. Fancy car, fancy house, posh neighborhood etc aren't necessary. If you live modestly you have plenty of time and leisure. I spent some time living in a Kibbutz in my 20s and while you have to work it never felt stressful or like a chore or as if you're defined by it.
These days as a dev in particular, you can take on a half-day job move to a cheap place in the country with a nice community, you have as much control over your time as you want.
Big secret: The rest IS entirely arbitrary.
Not independently wealthy except in the sense that I belong just above Branko Milanovic's 85th percentile of wealth. I have a small fixed retirement income derived from wealth accumulated over a 40 year working life. I have the good fortune to live in a country with a stable financial system and institutions that maintain continuity over time.
Taking your wider point, yes, perhaps my behaviour is shaped by the practicalities of my circumstances. But that shaping is largely unconscious so I don't have a sense of constraint.
I can feel like never getting out of bed, getting a heroin fix, eating a pizza to myself with a case of beer, and repeating. I would also feel like shit, but those aren't mutually exclusive. I could also feel like hitting refresh on social media clients that make me anxious several times a day.
I think that intuitive compass generally works, as you allude to, but not always. But as time passes, I don't think I "feel like" doing anything specific - what I feel like is getting a dopamine spike, blood flowing, social validation, feeling good. All of what we choose is just a vehicle.