If you ask all happy people around you about the key to their happiness, you will get roughly the same answer: being content with what you got and what you do. This state of contentment is the most significant factor in achieving happiness. For happiness is a state of the mind that has achieved balance and peace in life. The most guaranteed source of such a state is to be content and satisfied with your life.
But you may think: this state comes after one achieves happiness; it is not the key to happiness but the manifestation of happiness; there must be other factors that result in you having this state; maybe I misunderstood your point after all. The answer is: No. What is meant here is exactly what you understood and thought to be problematic. And yes, it may sound problematic and misleading, but it is not. Contentment and satisfaction do not come from other elements; no matter what life elements you got, you can be content and satisfied with them if you work on them. Here is one tool: always think about how worse things could have been. Think about the privileges you have.
And always remember that you are actually entitled to nothing; no one promises you of getting a specific level of living that you may demand when not being at. All you have is what you have; you do not need to speculate about what you don’t. Instead, speculate about what other people don’t have, which you do have, and be thankful. This way, you will be guaranteed happiness no matter how the state is in most cases.
But you may resist such an idea and disregard it as submissive or backward, achieving no progress in one’s life, but this is, again, untrue. For what are you going to lose if you don’t overwhelm your mind with sad anxiety-provoking thoughts about the goods you don’t have? In fact, you will gain much and lose much if you do otherwise. Thinking sadly and regretfully about what you wish to have does not bring it to you but brings only sorrow and anxiety. Be happy with what you have. Think good of it, and aim for more; no one forbids that on you. Being ambitious is not the opposite of being content and satisfied, rather, they are correlated many times.
For those who are satisfied with what they have can think more clearly and plan rationally how to get more of what they like. The state of contentment is not a lazy state; the lazy person is anxious and unwilling to work. The other end has the unsatisfied hard-working fellows. They may achieve much, but happiness would usually elude them, for they are looking for extraneous goods all the time, which are important factors but are not the real key. Happiness comes from within; never miss that.
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