If you make happiness your only measure of success, you’ll never get the gold that lives in the hardships. You won’t see that everything you go through is another brick you build your empire with. You’ll be too busy avoiding the “bad” to realize that there’s value in all of it.
We don't get what we want. We get who we are and what we embody. We get what we put out. Always a threefold measure of Self. Everyone is you fleshed out.