The fact is, happiness is not necessarily contingent on privileges. Bhutan is apparently one of the happiest countries in the world, and it’s sort of in the middle as far as development levels goes. It’s not “first world” by any means, and yet people there seem to know how to live. What their secret is, I don’t know.
It does seem sometimes that “vague unease” is often the default for many people, I would agree with that. It’s always about how things were better in the past, how the world sucks now, how everything’s going downhill…I think historical perspective has done a lot to change my attitude toward that, since there really wasn’t a time in history where people didn’t think these things. And realizing that the core parts of the human experience aren’t really any different for me than they were for the millions of people who have lived and died in centuries past has allowed me to put to rest some of that “unease”.
I don’t know why people measure their life against perfection; maybe because we can imagine perfection it’s inevitable that we’ll always fall short of that and be unhappy in some way. That’s probably why belief in an afterlife of paradise is so important for so many people.
I’m always striving for better and I can’t imagine not doing so, and I have some regrets, but looking at my life as a whole I think I could put my 1–100 number somewhere in the 90s. “Life sucks” seems to be a motto for many, but it’s never been mine.