I thought it was a well recognized fact that humans adapt--I remember this even from my old high school psych class. There's been a thousand studies about this

I thought it was a well recognized fact that humans adapt--I remember this even from my old high school psych class. There's been a thousand studies about this (becoming a refugee, poverty vs. being rich, etc etc). For most people, the only thing that has the power to permanently change your mental state is the death of someone very close to you (a spouse, child, etc) or forced exile from an identity forming social tie (eg. divorce, getting fired)