Most people spend most of their time working for somebody else, and most of them at the jobs they don't care for.
That's why when people win a lottery, the first thing they do is quit and do something they actually like - eat, travel, party, drive a nice car, sail, whatever. Almost none of them stay at their shitty job.
Hm. That argument seems to support the original line: they care about many things more than money. Once they have enough money, they turn to the things they care about. Before then, they were struggling to earn enough to accomplish any of the important things.
You're confusing the results of work with the results of spending the money that you make by work. Most people don't give a shit about their work and would stop working there the first chance they got. And of course people like the shit they can buy with the money.