More money, a higher rank, more connections.. are all unhappiness - both before you achieve them and after.
Before achieving them, you're unhappy because you haven't achieved them
After achieving them, a new unhappiness begins - of higher conditions, or the unhappiness of guarding what you've achieved.
With no conditions, needing no one's approval,
what's needed is happiness with the present state as-is, and self-recognition of the current me.
