Goals and the price

I walked past my dining room table and happened to glance down at one of my childrens' "Calvin and Hobbes" books lying open, face up.  I read the comic and therein, Calvin was complaining, out loud that he really did not want to go to school, that he would rather go anywhere else or do anything else than go to school.  His father responded with, "How about you go get a full time job and I'll go to school instead.  Then you can work every day until evening and then come home to a whiny kid."  And that made me think.  Everyone seems to have this built in, without even thinking, mentality of going to school, getting a job and living out the American dream.
My thought is about goals and the price we are willing to pay to achieve them.  Why do we put such a high price on having stuff, when none of it really satisfies, long term.  We all work so hard to get an education, we try to earn lots of money, but are we happy or satisfied?  To aim for anything is so contrary, so unusual, so (almost) unAmerican, no one ever thinks outside of the box.
It comes down to not really thinking for ourselves about what it will take to make us happy, to achieve love of God and love of neighbor and be prepared for eternity.  Those things seem to fall into a secondary, tertiary (or lower) position.  We get to them, if we have the time and energy after work and play.
But what if we hit the reset button and aimed for something more valuable and eternal?