Work to live or live to work... The eternal debate

This is an old expression about some people that prefer to put the work at the top of their priorities, with the opposite viewpoint being that of someone that works to earn enough to provide for himself and his family.

People may say that there is no right or wrong answer to the question of which attitude is better or more appropriate, that it is completely a personal choice and that one could change the attitude based on the target reached during the career.

Those Who Live to Work

Certain people, it is said, live to work. These are the people that put their job in the center of their lives. It is also proven that, in some cases, it is not a matter of being promoted or getting an higher salary, but that they are like this just because they want constantly to prove that they are better than other. Prove to family or prove to colleagues, boss, etc...

Mostly, high achievers who excel in demanding careers are people who live to work:

• Financial Advisors
• Investment Bankers
• Money Managers
• Stock Analysts
• Securities Traders

The same tends to be true of people who rise to high levels of management

Those Who Work to Live

By contrast, other people work to live. These people view in their work or careers only one purpose: to earn more money possible to support themselves and their dependents. Their work or careers are only means to an end, not an end in itself. It is not difficult to see these people try to cut corners, to gain the maximum pay for the minimum amount of effort, to put their workload or responsibility on others, etc...
But in this category there are also the people who like their job, they enjoy doing it, they put a big effort in their job and they are proud of it, but they would not spend more time than needed working. Their hobbies and perhaps family are still strongly their priority.

Real world

In the real world there are a lot of edge case scenarios and this topic is no exception.
I personally LOVE my job. I do this job because I have decided to do it, I have fought to get where I am and I am happy about my career and my salary. Having said this, I also like to draw a very bold line between work and life. Yes, I talk to my partner about job (she works in IT as well, so this makes things easy) and sometime we can end up in geek conversations, but I also like to enjoy my life, to spend my money and sometime leave the office early or arrive late (actually, this happens often :P ).
When I am on a lunch break, that must be a break, not an extension of the working day and people who don't understand that, really annoy me. I cannot understand how somebody can live to work but I don't blame them, as long as they don't ruin my lunch break :)

What is your opinion? What kind of person are you?