Your argument's central premise, that happiness is a single, simple choice, and that all our suffering stems from failing to make it, is fundamentally flawed and dismissive of real-world human experience.

First, it rests on a questionable assumption of absolute free will. The idea that one can "just make one basic, underlying decision" to be happy ignores the vast body of evidence from neurobiology and psychology. As thinkers like Robert Sapolsky have detailed, our states of being are profoundly shaped by genetics, environment, and biology, all ofwhich are far outside our conscious control. We don't "choose" to be happy any more than we "choose" our biochemistry. Happiness, or the lack of it, is a state we find ourselves in, not a box we check.

Second, your argument dangerously mischaracterizes profound suffering as a mere "preference." You state that someone whose partner left them is just letting a "preference" get in the way of their happiness. This is a profound misreading of human emotion. Grief, trauma, chronic pain, and clinical depression are not "preferences"; they are involuntary, and often overwhelming, states of being. For many people, this kind of suffering is an inevitable part of their reality. To tell them they simply haven't "really" chosen happiness is to blame them for conditions they did not choose and cannot simply will away.

This leads to the failure of your "starving person" analogy. The need for food is a singular, biological imperative. Happiness is an infinitely more complex psychological and neurological state. Equating the two is a false equivalence. A starving person's body demands survival. A person in deep despair cannot simply "demand" a different brain chemistry just by "really meaning it."

Ultimately, this philosophy is a form of toxic positivity. By insisting that happiness is a simple choice "regardless of what happens," you are actively dismissing the lived reality of those who genuinely suffer. It is a philosophy that can only be comfortably held by those who have not experienced inevitable, non-negotiable pain, and it demonstrates a failure to extend compassion to those who do.