While I agree that a certain base level of income is necessary to have decent life, it becomes a lot less important after that's reached. And that level for me mostly includes enough money for food, accommodation (, and healthcare if you're in the US) and some extras like going out or traveling once in a while. In Europe this is pretty easy to achieve in a technical field. Beyond that, I feel like more money doesn't add much to my happiness. Saying that this is one's most important asset sounds like one should spend most of one's life on maximizing income, which I think is indeed a bit sad.

There are plenty of people who are managing that without making any money at all, despite all sorts of prolonged efforts to turn their way of living into hell.

Integrity, being surrounded by loving people, being in good health, having the freedom to be all that you are. Those are all more important from my perspective.

We've been carefully conditioned to believe that this game is the only alternative, it's not.

Agreed. I actually spent the early part of my 20s thinking money wasn't so important, but I started to regret it when I realize I wanted to become independent, eventually start a family, and it all required money to achieve those means. I also used to despise the idea of having to get married, playing life by a to-do list of checkboxes (that society forces upon you in some sense), but I realize you can always have your cake and eat it too. Besides, higher levels of income usually require you to be reaching some level of competency and proficiency in a hierarchy of other people speaking the same language (productivity, logic, etc.) Also, it also serves as a very pragmatic and quantitative metric, something to continually strive towards. Sure, I can grow my own vegetables, read/write a bunch of books, go travel the world, and be a really interesting person, and that would be great, but where are you getting the roof over your head and the meal every night? Good news is, you can have your cake and eat it too.