…unless the guy quoted below is right, in which case it ain’t a downer, but the path to true and lasting happiness, a happiness no one can take away.
Now our blockishness arises from the fact that our minds, stunned by the empty dazzlement of riches, power, and honors, become so deadened that they can see no farther. The heart also, occupied with greed, ambition, and lust, is so weighed down that it cannot rise up higher. In a nutsehll, the whole soul, in a web made of the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on earth. To counter this evil the Lord instructs his followers in the vanity of the present life by continual proof of its miseries . . .
Then only do we rightly advance in the discipline of the cross, when we learn that this life, judged by itself, is troubled, turbulent, unhappy in countless ways, and in no respect clearly happy; that all those things which are judged to be its goods are uncertain, fleeting, vain, and vitiated by many intermingled evils. From this, at the same time, we conclude that in this life we are to seek and hope for nothing but struggle; when we think of our crown, we are to raise our eyes to heaven. For this we must believe: that the mind is never seriously aroused to desire and ponder the life to come unless it’s previously saturated with contempt for the present life.
Calvin, Institutes, III.ix.1
Go At A Walking Pace 
Wow, this Calvin character is smart! I wish he would write on other things in the Bible instead of just this little blurb. 🙂
That is a minute read with a lifetime of application right there.