At least in finance you can get to a number where you can finally say 'fuck it', and go do what you really want to do...
Long ago I traveled to Puerto Rico on business. One of the locals was a refugee from just such a Wall Street job. He had his first heart attack in his early 40s, and a decade later when I knew him it seemed as if all he needed was a loud noise to send him to his final reward. He had come back to PR to be with family, both because he needed help and because that's what you do when your mortality stares you in the face.
Doesn't seem worth it to me. When he was young he worked around the clock - he said some days the only sleep he'd get was the 20 minute cat nap on the toilet at work. When I knew him he had plenty of money but couldn't walk a quarter mile down the street without stopping to rest. What's the point?
I recently quit my job. I was working for a large investment bank. Many people talk about leaving to do what they really want to do, something interesting that they can be proud of.
Very, very few actually do it. Turns out no amount of money is ever 'enough'. Turns out adjusting your lifestyle from 400k$ to 100k$ is not so easy.
This golden cage phenomenon is well described here: http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/can-buy-me-...
All of this is obvious, but I rarely see it mentioned. We should optimize for meaning in our work, not happiness.