Work/Life Balance

When it's a choice between working and spending time with family, what do you choose? Why?

When it's a choice between spending time getting tortured and pushing yourself at work, when you can spend time next to people that you love, and they love you, why do most people choose the first, instead of the latter? Why is it that we prefer pain to pleasure?

Is it fear? Fear thet we are not going to bring enough money into the family, and that we'll spend a miserable life not having the extra money, while in fact we are spending a miserable life trying to earn that money?

Is it escape? Escape from happiness thinking that we can't possibly deserve all this happiness, while we can spend time being miserable?

Or is it that we want to spend time helping people, or completing tasks that we think are going to help people, while there are people at home that we can help instead, that would be much happier and make our life much better?

I wonder.