Work... Why Work?

Really, why work?

Why was it declared that mankind will spend the bulk of his golden years performing a repetitive task that accomplishes him little, and that he generally dislikes--or openly loathes--so someday he can have what he actually wants.
This is bullshit of the highest degree in my opinion.

I write, because it is the only way I have found to express the hundreds of millions of thoughts that screech through my head every day; the only way I can keep my mind focused--by giving it an infinite canvas with which to paint upon.
Why work.
By work I do not mean holding a job to pay the bills, or doing something that earns you an honest wage, rather I mean the fixation on a career, on making it your life's primary focus and content. That ones career should be the most important feature of their lives, such that people define themselves by it, is unfathomable to me.
I am a lawyer... a salesman... an accountant... I am my job....
That is what I hear from people's lips, that they have become their career, their job, their work. They are no longer a person, they are simply a being that performs a task. It is that state which I detest so strongly. More than anything else, I am appalled by--and frankly, terrified of--becoming one of these drones. A man-shaped automaton whose purpose is to endlessly repeat his days of work until that magical day that he can 'retire' and spend the money he has been accumulating on things he actually wants, now that he is old and lacks the energy and drive to do much more than sit quietly and ponder what he has lost.
I have watched men a decade older than me that are trapped in this wheel, unable to break free of it and prayed in my heart of hearts, "oh God please don't let that be me."

Why work.
Money, money is the knee-jerk answer. You can't get money without work, and you can't live without it, so you must work. And this is a fair point to be sure, but why then does that become our life? Think about it, if you spend 40 hours a week earning money, to do... something... sometime... then what is the point of your money? When do you do things you enjoy? When do you get any benefit at all from your money? If money is our goal, if that is why we work, then clearly many many people are going about it all wrong. While money is certainly required to survive in any comfortable lifestyle, it is only valuable insofar as it actually allows you to have a lifestyle, not just an existence.
For that is what so many worker drones do... they exist.
They do not work so that they may enrich and enjoy their lives, they work to earn money to pay for their car that they drive to work in, their house that they eat and sleep in after work, and to do something on the weekend that lets them forget about their work for a while.
I would literally rather die.
-Matthew

PS. This rant brought to you by hours of frustrated thinking, brainstorming and talking about why I can't seem to get a job, hold it, and not hate my every waking moment. Your regularly scheduled writing posts will continue shortly.