I don't feel happy but reading some of these reminds me of how fortunate I have been. It's interesting that at some low points you appreciate things more because you get clarity, and at points where you are just plugging along with nothing going too wrong (me right now) you can be quite miserable.

I have a pretty successful career, which I always wanted, but I don't really like it and it is so time consuming I don't spend nearly enough time with my kids and wife, and the clients and the demands often make me depressed, and since I'm at work from say 9 am to 10 pm most nights, if I'm down at work I'm just down because work is all consuming. And while it's well paying, I live in an area where a mortgage is a life time committment, and you never really "make it" even if you do well, so I've really felt like a mouse on a treadmill for a few years, particularly as my committments just keep increasing and I just keep working harder.

And my youngest daughter just came down with a blood condition that is scary as hell - she doesn't clot internally very well, so the wrong internal injury could be disastrous, though in many cases the condition just goes away on its own, so we may yet be in luck. And it's something you live with but just have to be careful. But knowing my daughter has a very real achilles heel makes me very sad - I think nothing is so humbling as realizing you can't protect your kids from everything. But as I was at the hospital with her today I saw a kid on the floor with a helmet, probably to protect him from himself when he has seizures or something, who was severely retarded, and it was pretty clear that with perspective it's a miracle how healthy my family is (and particularly me with my unhealthy work life), and that I have a lot to be thankful for.

So I guess I'm not happy, but realize I have much to be thankful for, and am approaching a point where I will try to make some life changing decisions to increase my time for my life at the expense of my career potentially, and I suspect when I get there I'll feel happy again. I think for me happiness has been when I've felt I was driving my life rather than my life driving me, but it's harder to do that than I thought when I was a kid. And as everyone with kids knows, it's not really your life anymore so you have to make compromises you wouldn't make as a young man.