Before anyone points out that everyone died at 25 or something like that, the low life expectancy had a lot to do with child and infant mortality. If you made it to adulthood, you had a decent chance of making to to 50 or 60, which isn't a modern life span, but it's better than most people realize.

And, as you point out, you spent more of your time living rather than just working. If I had almost twice the time with my loved ones while I was young, that might be a decent tradeoff for losing ten or twenty years later one.