"If you didn't have to work for money, what would you do with your life?"
That's one interesting question that I think most people should think about and be able to answer for themselves.
Of course, for the major part of our lives, one's work defines what one has to do with their time, for most of the week, for most of one's waking ours.
Even before we are to join the labour market, if given the chance, one spends time in school, college and/or university so that they have better job opportunities in the future.
Given that so much of our waking ours and long-term directions we take in our lives are somewhat influenced by our job, I think a worthy question is “what if were not so?”.
I think this brings up into light what we truly value. Were money of no consequence, ideally -- I think -- we'd spend as much of our time doing what's important to us.
An what's important to oneself?
As a starting point, an answer for that question, from developmental psychology by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943, later called “Maslow's hierarchy of needs”.
This idea proposes that human motivation follows some natural hierarchy of needs, that one can represents as a pyramid with the needs placed lower in the pyramid being more essential and urgent. Once the needs at the lower levels of the pyramid are met, the individual can feel free to pursue higher-order needs.
At the second-higher level of the pyramid is “self-actualisation”. One can interpret to be “achieving what one sets out to achieve”. Being able to pursue self-directed goals, and finding joy or satisfaction from the pursuit itself -- not necessarily from the achievement. There's plenty to be said for that level alone, but let us call it “the individual's pursuit of happiness for oneself”.
Finally, at the highest level -- actually added later on by Maslow -- is called “transcendence”. Consider an individual once they have all of its own needs fulfilled: the only remaining goals can come from elsewhere. System of beliefs -- such as religions -- can provide some ready answers for that one, but I think it's even more interesting to come up with your own.