Happiness Does Not Have to Be Earned
We can treat happiness like compensation: after enough effort, success, security, recognition, or repair, we will finally have earned the right to feel it. There is always another condition, so the permission keeps moving.
This does not mean anyone must feel happy on demand. Grief, illness, deprivation, and other difficult conditions are real. The useful question concerns the bargain we make with circumstances: must every moment of happiness wait until everything is resolved?
We can seek help, work toward change, and grieve what was lost. None of those actions requires us to reject a moment of ease or joy because the work is unfinished.
Happiness is not a certificate issued by perfect conditions. When it appears before the conditions are solved, we do not have to send it away for arriving too early.