Optimism, Gratitude, and Human Odds

There are so many people racing to earn more money than they can even spend, even if they have to sacrifice their happiness and livelihood to do so. The really disturbing part about this is that most of these people only want the money so they can be flashy and show off their overly expensive cars (that they don't even want) and other dumb things to other people. Happiness needs to be the Northstar that we strive towards. If we aren't aiming to be happy, then is it really worth having more money than you can spend and more cars than you can drive?