I just care about things other than my career, and I'd rather spend most of my mental energy on things I do for pure enjoyment and not on things I have to do out of economic necessity.

For example: I've spent a large chunk of my free time over the last few months learning how to typeset signs in fansubs and make them look good, something that has no economic utility whatsoever, but makes me really happy when I typeset something that looks good. Yeah, sure, I could have spent that time furthering my career by developing a marketable tech skill, writing tools for my company on my own time to impress management, or writing an open-source piece of software to pad my GitHub portfolio, but I'd rather do something fun for myself than do any of those.

Substitute the word balance for plateau and you'll begin to understand. Desire is suffering.

also lets be real, programming isn't worth infinity money.

It's a plateau in earnings, not a plateau in life.