Work can be paid or unpaid. For paid work, time is exchanged for income. While ideally it has features that overlap with unpaid work, it is ultimately done in response to the external need to pay the bills. It often involves some degree of stress as well as answering to others on their terms and at their convenience.
Unpaid work is undertaken by choice to fulfill an internal need: as an outlet for creative expression, to contribute to or repair society, for a sense of community and belonging, for the joy found in pursuing a shared goal or solving a complex problem, in fulfilling a commitment or reciprocating care to family or friends, or for the inherent pleasure of losing track of time when entering a flow state. You can commit to unpaid work on your terms.
Money is derived from paid work until such a time as money is no longer a barrier to pursuing unpaid work. The vast majority of people do not overcome that barrier until late in life, if at all.
The ability to iterate and pursue new versions of your work life (reinventing what you do and assuming new, potentially unrelated professional identities periodically) are one of the more appealing aspects of the FIRE movement - not because it frees you leave work behind, but because it frees you to pursue an entirely different class of work that may have substantially lower remuneration and proportionally greater meaning than what one might undertake solely to maintain a desired lifestyle.
This is my work-related reason for pursuing financial independence.