From and interesting article on Minimalism and Happiness on The Minimalists website.

My mantra – be happy. Me and a billion others. So we go on our happiness quest—we try new things – jobs, friends, situations and locations. We acquire – homes, cars, clothes, a host of “luxury” goods, diplomas, titles, consciously or not, in the hope they will make us feel “better.” We travel far and wide hoping to find the answer, that happiness stone we simply slip into our pocket and and have our worries magically fade away. Unfortunately, too often that stone just piles up with everything else we accumulate and weighs us down.

Some of us do just the opposite, we give and we give—time, clothes, money. Though we often try to be “selfless” in our giving, who can’t help but be at least a little attached to the “thank you,” filling that basic human need for acknowledgement from others that we’re good—a good person, a good mother, a good father, good enough.

And so it goes, we seek happiness outside ourselves, acceptance outside ourselves, a life outside ourselves. When we go searching for sweetness from candy, it leaves holes in our teeth. When we go searching for love, acceptance and fulfillment from others, it leaves holes in our hearts. Go inside and you can find a whole lot more than you may have expected. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll see it’s as much about being whole as about being happy.