This internal compulsion is just learned behavior. The society conditions you to work instead of play.
Nothing wrong with that, I have that compulsion as well.
Having a compulsion to play, purely for the sake of playing is a much healthier view. Useful, not useful, hard problem, easy problem, should not matter, you're playing.
Sometimes you can't be useful, yet you can always play.
All stems from inability to have systems without labor. Work, work.
I like how Pope John Paul II flipped the narrative and said work exist for the person, as a way for person to express itself. Made me realize how even communism stays trapped in labor mentality.
As we mature mentally, we need more interesting games to play, more interesting challenges. Work is many times the result of this.
It's the same with romance. When we are children we have a crush on somebody, become pretend "boyfriend and girlfriend", and as we mature the game becomes more interesting as it becomes real.
But it's all a game throughout life.
So perhaps it is those who enjoy work who has elevated their spiritual level, and not the other way around?
I like this thought. It is interesting to look at our current societal/economic systems on the earth and realize none of them will survive the death of scarcity.
Was about to comment the same till I found your comment.
I have this compulsion too, and did some deep-diving at some point through therapy. I found that really it's just likely conditioning from family/society.
If you are generally praised for helping out whilst growing up and this is when you receive a lot of love/attention, it's natural to build pathways that favour this and thus behavioural patterns.