Being Happy with What You've Got
Part 2

This sounds counter-intuitive, but the spiritual practice of giving will actually help you be happier with what you already have.

It helps to have a sense of a larger scheme of life, to believe there are spiritual realities beyond your comprehension that help the universe to turn in mysterious and sometimes beneficial ways.

Jesus talks about it like this:
If you look at flowers, God dresses them more beautifully than any emperor, but in a few weeks or months they'll get thrown in the wood chipper. And God loves you so much more than flowers! Or, if you look at a little bird, God knows every time it lands on a new tree branch. And God knows you so much better than a little bird. Don't worry about what you'll wear or what you'll eat, because God will take care of you. God knows you and knows what you need. (See Matthew 6 for the whole speech)

What's the best way to really believe this? Not by sitting around and repeating it to yourself, but by acting on it. Because sometimes we don't believe something first and then act on it. Sometimes we have to act first and believe afterwards.

So if you really would like to believe that God will take care of you, act on that assumption: write out a check to a charity, or find some time to spend volunteering. You'll still have enough, and you'll still be taken care of. Because that's what it takes to be happy with what you've got: really believing that what you have is enough.