Yes and yes.

If you think that's all you need to be happy, you're mistaken. Got a promotion a few months ago. Great title. Love the job. Massive raise in pay. After about two days I sunk into a depression because it literally didn't change anything in my life.

"Great. I am a success. Now what?"

The hedonistic treadmill is real. Happiness has to come from within.

Some more questions to add to this list: 1) Are you short of food or water 2) Are you or your loved ones in constant fear of being enslaved and/or blown to bits 3) Has there been a systematic effort to drive out your culture and replace it with another

I could go on but I think I've made my point. So many people today live in what could only be described as hell. Sitting in the western world with our cushy lives, regardless of how many headlines we read about war, famine, rape and death, it just doesn't really matter to us. It's not our world and it's not our problem. If only we could see things from their perspective. If only we could feel their suffering the way they do, I don't think we could be unhappy for a day in our lives.

But as humans naturally we are never satisfied with where we are and what we have. We always want more. Even when we have enough to eat, we want more. Even when we are surrounded by people who love us, we want more. Even when we have money, we want more.

In many ways I suppose this is both a blessing and a curse. The constant desire to make things better, faster, stronger, and never being satisfied with what we have is what fuels us. Without it we would not have made all the astounding innovations that, to an observer from the past, could only be characterized as magic.

> If only we could feel their suffering the way they do, I don't think we could be unhappy for a day in our lives.

So essentially you argue that “it could be worse”? This doesn’t seem materially different to me than “it could be better”.

Perhaps a person could see those things and he incredibly depressed to be born into a world with no apparent practical solution to those problems.

Perhaps a person could come here from those conditions and never actually adapt properly to their new life, living each day waiting for the bottom to fall out.

For myself, I’ve seen plenty of shit. I also have plenty that I’m thankful for. Neither of those facts predisposes me to happiness, in any particular sense of the word.

Thinking it could be worse makes us grateful that it is not. Thinking it could be better makes us desire for more. In that way I think the two ideas are different.

I think there is great wisdom in the buddhist idea of desire being the root for all suffering. But if we want to make progress we have to desire for more. So then we have to embrace the Buddha's idea that "life is suffering".

Another factor I haven't seen mentioned much in this thread, which undoubtedly plays a role in our happiness is genetics and upbringing. Some of our brains are just wired in ways that predispose us to being (un)happy.