sick and tired of material well being and caste system

All around me I get the feeling that there is a pressure situation thickening about material well being. I just finished watching a touching movie and later an intimate chat with my best friend and then reflected back on how things are going in my life and in the life of my friend. Everyone you seek advice to keep advising only one thing... earn money. Their wisdom boils down to money can fetch you any happiness, so earn loads of money. This is the typical left brained thought. But sorry, now am no mood to think left minded. I for once felt like giving my heart a chance and see what the whole thing appears to it. As expected, it is complaining. It is posing some tough questions that are eluding my rationality. When did I feel most happy, is it when I relaxed in the most luxurious cars an ibanker can or is it when I played holy happily with the kids in the orphanage home. Certainly while doing the later.Till when should I earn, can someone please tell me. I'll start with at least a 12hr a day job. I spend in that job for some 2years to find that I'm promoted (read materially more well'd off) to work in more responsible roles for another 5 more years, another uplift in my material well being and another 5 more years. By then I'd be nearing my 40s. And can I retire then? I'd be told - 'No way, kids are coming along how could you renounce your responsibilities at such a crucial time'. So another at least 10 more years. By then I'd be in my 50s and all those cherishable moments I could collect will all be long lost by then.A peek into my friends plight tells me more worry is due even later. Hoping you slough all till your 50s and build a stock of 'material wealth' you would then not want your kids to go marry someone they like but rather try to find a match into an equally 'materially well off' or even more well off families. Anything they would do to find a match for themselves on the contrary (read love a creative mate but not so well off) would be treated as a sin. To make things more worse society norms of caste creep in. Is it not more important to lead a life of love and happiness with a person who can understand you and stand by you in the thick and thin, rather than ignorantly select someone of your caste and of equal material wealthiness and sob for the rest of the life. Why do inter-caste marriages get treated so meanly and parents of kids who committed them behave so defensively as if they are ashamed of themselves? Purely irrational in the end, isn't it?