Thank you sharing your reflections @larrymorrison. "Happiness is an inside job". Even in the best possible circumstances there is no guarantee one will feel happy. It is easy to get used to good things in our lives and start taking them as a given, start taking what we have been given for granted. Sometimes it takes loosing what we have to finally realize how good we had it. It is easy to blain circumstances, people, outer conditions for our unhappiness. Only when we take responsibility for our own happiness, when we take responsibility for our attitude and our reactions we can find lasting contentment, peace and joy at any rate. Happiness is a feeling, and feeling is nothing more then a reaction to inner and outer events. We are not automated machines, although we do act on autopilot pretty often, we can evaluate our reactions and train ourselves to develop new more appropriate reactions. We strive for happiness, forgetting that happiness is a byproduct of our lifestyle. Instead why not strive for lifestyle that produces happiness?