"The psychological trait of comparison is obviously also a factor. Because the negative features I have described are common to all lives, they play very little role in how people assess the quality of their lives. It is true for everybody that the worst pains are worse than the best pleasures are good, and that pains can and often do last much longer than pleasures. Everybody must work hard to ward off unpleasantness and seek the good things. Thus, when people judge the quality of their own lives and do so by comparing them to the lives of others, they tend to overlook these and other such features."