I thought this as well, then found myself in the situation of not needing to work and found that, after some period of hedonism, it became quite empty. I think in the past it was easier for more people to experience this. We had less 'stuff' but much larger families and lived in generally more social systems. Those mitigate a lot of the coercive extrinsic pressures to work. And I think this is why philosophy, especially personal philosophy trending towards self betterment, was so much more prevalent in the past.