Is it Necessary to Stamp out Materialistic Desires to be Happy?

What exactly is the meaning of happiness and how to get it- this simple question has been perplexing even most intelligent beings since ages.  A person can marvel at the ways people adopt to stay happy. Some of us believe buying trendiest cloths, coolest gadgets and better things can make us happy while others opine possession of worldly things is the root cause of all our problems and we ought to stop accumulation. This is how we can connect to the god and master the hardships thrown to us by nature. In other words they think detachment from worldly affairs can surely bestow happiness upon them.

On the surface, all of us look happy or pretend to be happy but deep down there is a feeling of void and we all diligently are in search of something that can fill in this void  so that we could have peace, contentment and happiness. Those of us, who count on materialistic approach and see worldly comforts as the substitute of happiness, often have to flip out for worldly comforts, are transient in nature and nothing but the transformation of worldly sorrows. So, to run only for material comforts in order to gain happiness does not seem be legitimate solution. On the other hand, if we detach our self from the worldly obligations, the growth of our society as well as civilization will be imperiled and if this is what god had expected from us, he would not have not created the world.

So both the theories propounded to stay happy seem to be flawed and wide of the mark. It’s not possible to lead a life without using whatever that belongs to this world; likewise complete detachment from the world is a potent threat to the development of healthy society. But we need not to go berserk as we can always choose the middle way. We can enjoy all the amenities that world has to offer while being humble, honest, truthful and above all thankful to god. We also have to be vigilant enough to make sure that we don’t exploit nature and natural resources in order to enrich our lives.  We must also not have clandestine agenda for development; all our operations must be aboveboard. We need not to detach from the world but moderate our actions and revive the swept away values.