“If I showed you a pile of coins and gave you 1 hour to collect as much as you can, you would spend as much time gathering the gold as you could.”
You’re right – we WOULD do that – in order to be able to afford to pay rent, food, utility bills, clothing, tuition, etc. (something you are not doing when you are sitting all day in the Beis Medrash, as ideal as that might be to be able to afford to do – but most people can’t, so they have to earn a parnassah).