Thank you for sharing your thoughts Kimi.
I completely agree that you need to find a balance in life between enjoying it in the present while also preparing for the future. After all, beyond giving us the needed egotism fuel to go the distance, none of us have a guarantee that the future we're preparing for will ever arrive for us.
If you read my other articles, you'll see that this is a common thread that underlies most of them. It's e.g. why I recommend setting aside and investing half and not 100% of increases in income.
As for my dad, he spent those many years productively, by learning to become a carpenter, designing and crafting many pieces of furniture for our extended family, making Tiffany style lamp shades, and along the way volunteering as the deputy mayor of his town and completely revamping the local educational system. It's just that he didn't need to chase income and could do things he enjoyed and/or saw as important without regard to whether he could get hired to do them.