If you don't score yourself by how much better you're doing than peers (or yourself yesterday), it shouldn't be too hard to be content+optimistic, provided you'

If you don't score yourself by how much better you're doing than peers (or yourself yesterday), it shouldn't be too hard to be content+optimistic, provided you're lucky enough to be healthy + intelligent + free of bad relationships. What seems natural for most of us, though, is to become desensitized to what's good and feel only about the surprises, which eventually end up negative (mean-reversion and things over-enthusiastically taken for granted - I'll always win, they'll always love me, etc.) I think knowing that helps a little. Just like it helps knowing that your blue mood when you're sick will pass on its own as you recover. Some people are naturally more or less happy, I'm sure, in their baseline no-surprise state. I wouldn't worry about it until someone figures out how to change it. As long as you have energy to want+do things, you're ok.