Existence is a strange thing, so is happiness.
For most, being a slave and spending a good portion of your life struggling and being someone's whipping-boy or whipping-girl is reality, so is struggling to afford things in life, making sacrifices and compromises to move up in the world to afford that home of your dreams, that vehicle of your dreams, possibly building a little nest-egg for oneself.
For those lucky enough to be able to retire at an age where one still has a little time on their side, often by that point one is too old, tired, and beat-up to embark upon any sort of real journey, so ones last days/years are spent at home (often inside), and then the end comes.
In speaking for myself, life has never felt complete, I mean truly complete. I can't put my thumb on what exactly is missing, but there's just something that's not there.
Am I happy? Well, I have both good days and bad days, days where I can take life, and days where I could care less about life, more days where I could care less to be honest. Do I wake each morning and jump up and clack the heels of my shoes together and holler yippee, because life is so grand? No. Are there pleasures in life that make me crave more? Sure, but let's face it, at this point and stage in our lives, we've all but used up what borrowed time we were given, and to all who say that life begins after retirement, rubbish!
Life began when we were born, our best years were when we were young, we had no aches and pains, we had no boundaries, no restrictions or limitations (health/physically), we were without debt and bills and pressures, we enjoyed bounds of energy, that was life, not in one's 60 and 70's, when some people can no longer even tie their own shoes or jog around a city block.
Happiness? What is happiness? Working until one is age 60, 65, 70, even possibly beyond so that one can afford to live? Making payments on a home for 25 or 30 years to call it your own, when in actuality one never owns their home (or anything else in life). To prove that we never own our homes, one just needs to fall in arrears for 2-3 years on their property taxes, and then tell me again who owns what.
So from cradle to retirement we spend a good 3/4's of our lives slaving and toiling away, yet in the end what do we have? I have yet to come across a single soul that has managed to find a loop-hole in the system that allowed them to take their riches to the grave with them, so why all the hard work in life, and who exactly are we working for? Happiness? Not in my books it's not. Being a slave and answering to someone for the first 60 (or more) years of ones life does not equate to happiness to me, nor does it equate to happiness for my husband, or a majority of others I have engaged in this very same conversation over the years.
I've watched my husband claw his way out the door now for the better part of 40 years (bless him), and while he's retiring at the end of this year (age 60), and is fit as a fiddle, statists are clear on the matter, for a majority, 16 whole years awaits us after retirement, and that's if your lucky, and that doesn't guarantee good years. Happiness? 16 years out of ones entire life to start enjoying life again as though you were a kid again, after spending 60 (or more) years of it under the thumb-screws and direction of someone else? Hardly happiness in my books.
For the 1% who love their jobs, good for them, but that isn't reality for the other 99%, the 99% I know of and talk to, where they see nothing rosy, happy, or thrilling about throwing away the first 60 (or more) years of their lives to get a measly 16 years back.
To put that into perspective, based upon living until one if 85 years of age, the reward after a lifetime of hard work is a measly 13.6% return, that's what the average person get's back in life after spending (investing) the first 60 (or more) years under the control of others. I'll spare you the grim facts as to those that don't even get to enjoy 13.6%, but my guess is they'd have very little (good) to say about happiness if they could reply to this topic.
I've asked my husband, "would you do it again"? His answer to me was a resounding no. Is my hubby happy? Sure, he's as thrilled as me.