The illusion of having things, do give us the happiness of achieving it. Sadly, this temporary high wouldn't keep us happy for long. And next come the accumulation of stuff~ All for the next happiness fix. And not before long, it will end up to be a lifetime of buying buying buying.
Another illusion is the promise of being happy when we achieve certain stages of our lives. (When we earn $5k monthly, when we finish our bond/studies/whatever we are at that point of life.) But when we get there, we find that we are not happy enough, and yet raise the bar before we will be 'truly' happy.
All this never ending chase to be happy by external objectives, how about we try to be happy inside to begin with? If might be just the solution that we need in the first place. And how to go about to be happy inside, that's something I am working on also. We can always try to work on it together?
Note down all the things that we need for living, and it's exactly not a lot to begin with. Curtail away the excesses(wants) and live simply. Life is not meant to be wasted hankering over things that we don't really need, since the next want will arise soon after the want is satisfied?
As what one of the TED talk speakers used to say, Dave Ramsey — 'We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.'