Is Money the Main Drive?

When people are addressed as materialistic, the term materialistic is not seen in a good sense. But is it logically to call one materialistic? I think we all can agree that money is the most materialistic possession in the world. For example the middle class citizens of the United States, which make up for most of its population spend almost their whole life working towards money. Picture this, a little kid going to school to gain knowledge to gain money later in life. When he/she get older they find a job in order to gain money, in the mid years the person works more to gain experience to succeed to a better and higher position to gain more money and then when the person has finally at the highest they can achieve in life he/she saves the money for a good retirement. Looking back, we can see that the person spent most of their life trying to earn this material when they can barely enjoy it’s advantages in the end.
Is life too short? Or are people just wasting their time? It is true that one cannot live in the world without money and I understand that it is a very important asset to our lives but sometimes I feel like material things such as money tend to block the true mean of life.