There's really no point in thinking of the question of happiness from this perspective. Everyone tries to logically plan out a path to contentment, happiness an

There's really no point in thinking of the question of happiness from this perspective. Everyone tries to logically plan out a path to contentment, happiness and satisfaction whether it be through making a lot of money or other means. The reality is... we're not biologically programmed to ever reach that state. As humans we're creatures of natural selection. Our physical bodies are competitive machines built through eons of evolution. For the same reason our minds have also been honed into competitive machines, designed to never feel satisfied and to always aggressively seek and want more. There is no competitive advantage to a mind that is perfectly content or happy, that is why you will rarely find a person who has truly reached this state. Simply being aware of this fact will also not lead to happiness. Too many people feel the solution is as simple as changing their state of mind. Simply changing your life philosophy and telling yourself to want less and to lead a simple life is not a viable solution. In the end doing this is just trying to force your mind to deny fundamental biological imperatives. It's like telling yourself to not be hungry. It is imho fundamentally impossible to remove your desire for money if all your peers are making 10 times more money then you. The last sentence in the previous paragraph is the key to happiness. Your biological drive to compete is actually tied to the people/environment around you. Your environment and culture dictates not only your drive to compete but the nature of the competition itself. In the corporate world people compete for money, in the military, they compete for ranks. As a result, the key to happiness is really simple. If you're not happy, change your environment. Move to an environment where people don't compete as much. By being in a culture that is not that competitive your drive to be compete will also fall proportionally. Changing your environment changes your nature. You cannot live in a competitive environment and change your nature through sheer willpower alone, you have to change your environment and that in turn will change your nature; and possibly increase your capacity to be happy. The perfect example everyone can relate to is the shift from student life to corporate life. As the nature and intensity of the competition from student to employee metamorphosed into another form, your capacity to feel satisfied and happy also dropped significantly (at least it does for most people).