Cause I am interested in this line of work. At least if it pays enough to live comfortably.
Mind you, I still have to work, but there's rarely anything that needs to be done right now, unless I goofed up while fiddling with nginx.
Before that I was a contractor for a year or two. After seeing contracting colleagues disappear for months-long vacations, I wanted in on that.
Before that I was a regular employee in Europe, where work culture is far more relaxed. I had more vacation days as an intern than my parents in the home country ever had. I also became really good at aggressively cutting meetings for me and my team, which gave us more time to experiment without affecting output.
In Germany, you also have the right to reduce your work hours. Coincidentally, that's the article I'm currently working on.
There's a minimum number of frogs that you have to eat. Mine is very low out of sheer luck. However there are different ways to bring most people's number down, starting with don't glorify eating frogs.
I am curious how many hours a day/week you work, and if you are open about this with your employer...
I make sure I'm aligning my personal technical interests with the kinds of projects I work on for the company, so work feels more like a fun puzzle to solve rather than slogging through tedium. Generally I don't work late into the evenings, but sometimes a problem is really just that fun to solve, and I enjoy spending time on it. Other times, projects may be less interesting, so I work fewer hours, letting myself rest. Burnout is real, and it sucks, and I avoid it at all costs.
My employer really just cares that I get my work done, not how many hours it takes to do it. If I'm getting "meets all" or "exceeds" in my yearly ratings, then I'm meeting or exceeding their standard, and we're both happy.
I mostly work when it feels right, yes, and do something else when it doesn't. But I am doing my PhD and (in Canada) it absolutely does not pay enough to live comfortably.