Happiness in Real Time

By age 30, two observations will have been seared into your awareness:

1. You never realized how good you had it during times when you had it good.

2. The things you thought made you happy were mostly just distracting your attention.

There's a lot more to these insights than you might initially think (for one thing, each explains the other). If you take them to heart,  by the time you're 40 you may discover what truly does make you happy, and appreciate it in real time, rather than in perennial bittersweet hindsight.