Floss
* Don't let anybody else define success. You are not in high school anymore--chart your own path.
* Count your blessings. Be grateful, if not to God then to your parents or somebody besides yourself.
With that said, there are plenty of people who believe their job does the world good and wish they could do more good before they are taken away from this life. I hope to be one of them.
To say such a thing also isn't necessarily opposed to belief that hard work is good, or that it is valuable to one's self and society. It simply means that if you work too much, you can miss out on life.
Sure, if you hate your job, or it's meaningless. But let's turn this around. Do great painters wish they had spent less time painting? Or do they wish they could finish their last project. Do writers wish they had written less, or do they wish they could live long enough to finish that last book?
I do what I do because I enjoy doing it more than spending time with my family. For better or for worse, it is a compulsion, a calling, not a job.
The way most people seem to mean this is one in which it's trivially true, since work is unpleasant but necessary and family is pleasant but scarce.
There is work out there that people love and not only activities that you get compensated for qualify as "work". Similarly there's relatives out there that people do wish they'd spend less time with.