Those factors don't account for individuals, only on generalities. Something like the original post assuming, tongue in cheek, that the Boomer generation was better than the Millennial generation. There were unhappy and poor people in each era, just as there are happy and prosperous people in times when the general quality of life was bad. When I say poor and prosperous I don't mean just wealth, its also having a job that one loves, a place one is at home in, respect in one's community, good personal relationships and the like. Wealth is a factor, but a small factor. Some of the most unhappy people are the ones with the most money, who use their power to make other people unhappy so they will have company.

I agree that in times of turmoil, quality of life goes down for all in that society. With that said there are those who make the changes needed (go elsewhere or establish a position that takes advantage of the turmoil), who will have a better quality of life than those who are unable to handle the turmoil. In Saudi Arabia, those who like authoritarian theocracies are happy, those who don't like being that controlled are unhappy. That was true in the Soviet Union, China and other places. Some people in the US are advocating that we become like those countries right now, demanding that we become a socialist or communist country rather than a republic based on capitalism.

My point is aimed right at your "different strokes for different folks" point of view. I don't agree with that. It's not all relative. There are better societies and there are worse societies. Across time this is especially evident.

Also, in fairness, nobody is advocating we become like the Soviet Union or Maoist China. Yes, there's a danger we could get something disappointingly similar while flirting with socialism/marxism, but most people are pushing for Western European style nanny state. Those European states are poorer than the USA, but not dystopian nightmares like the Soviet Union and China.

The generalities matter if you want to understand macro trends in quality of life (or any other measure for that matter). An N=1 argument of "I've figured it out, so everyone should too" is not useful to anyone but yourself.

It's like the people who point out cases of individual irrational actors and want to discount all economic theory based on it. There are things to learn from these cases around systemic biases, etc...but it doesn't take away from the fact that on the whole humans are rational actors most of the time.

I haven't looked enough at the macro trends in quality of life to comment on boomers vs. millennials, but I think your post is missing the point. There are attempts to measure quality of life in non-financial terms on larger scales...OECD's Better Life Index as an example.

Don't hope....https://www.dailymail.co.uk/...-attractiveness.html