I heard that back in the days, people used to just go when their work was done on the farms and there was no concept of 9-5 (these days seem 24 hours work). There used to be a lot of holidays. Is that true? If it is, then given the abundance in technology, why our work hours increased and why do we have such weird lives that we live to work?
Yup. In the ancient world, ascetics and monks would practice “having daily schedules” alongside various other harsh forms of penitence, like self-flagellation. One of the ancient Greek authors (Plato?) spoke about it unfavourably even in that context.
The flip side of that, is that if your animals or crops need something now, they need it now. There’s no maximum hours or work-life balance, either. Still, it’s fair to say most people that have experienced that much prefer it, if you put aside how uncomfortable the work itself is.
Because it’s kind of crazy, it’s also worth mentioning that people slept twice in a day, with some time spent up during the night.
Kind of.
Confining ourselves to Europe, there were a lot of public holidays in ancient Rome, and to a lesser extent lots of religious days and festivals in medieval Europe. The medieval holy days were more about fasting or similar than time off of work, though. And, in Rome, there were no weekends yet, so holidays basically served the same role.
Plus, most holidays were optional in both, so a deeply poor person or a slave with a tough master might work fairly continuously.
When industialisation came in, 12 hour days were fairly standard. Arguably, working hours have gone down.
As to why we work on schedules now, you basically just have to in a complex, highly specialised society. If you’re using tools you made and maybe a couple your friend the blacksmith made, and using them to produce food and housing from “your own” land, sure, it just all has to get done sometime. If you’re having a formal meeting or vote and show up 2 days late, like is recorded becoming a problem in medieval republics, it’s a bit disruptive.