1. I believe people have a higher potential for happiness in this era than any era before it.

2. What cultivates happiness?

3. Locus of Control

4. Self knowledge

5. Conclusion

And I don't think it's because we're living in the time with the highest standard of living and is the least violent, least racist, and least sexist (though you'd never know it).First, we need to figure out the components of this trait that philosophers keep thinking about.There are a lot of variables that contribute to a person's happiness. Creative output, family, if the person is about to die or not, how much cocaine they did in the last 30 minutes - lots of things.But some things matter a lot.A person with their survival needs met will have a stable happiness graph. Meaning: you have food, water, a house, and a good amount of social interaction? You're set.Corollary: even if you have a surplus of those things, your happiness will be stable (shout out to unsatisfied rich people).So is happiness fixed?Anyone can intuit it isn't. I have first-hand experience: 10-year-old-Kenny playing Magic The Gathering on summer break is happier than now-Kenny writing this. Kidding. Not really. Magic The Gathering was great.But seriously. What is the difference maker?One variable that contributes happiness to a person's life is their sense of control.Control, or "locus of control" in other terms, means that you feel you have a say in what happens to you. That you are in charge of your destiny. And if you put in effort, you will get what you deserve.I believe the biggest factor of control depends on our environment.Imagine being a Jew in Nazi Germany. Doesn't matter who you are, you're not going to have a lot of control. So happiness isn't exactly brimming during this period.You're born in the Middle Ages? Two choices: starve to death, or go into serfdom. And although serf sounds similar to surf, the only thing they have in common is you get beaten repeatedly - one by whip, another by waves.In the two previous examples, you can put a lot of effort striving towards something, but it can be taken away for no moral reason.If you look at the culture today, it's the direct opposite. We celebrate people who are self made. If you strive for something and people like it, Papa Capitalism will reward you (<3 you too Capitalism). Seems like the environment is on our side this time.But that's not all.Our environment didn't just change, what we know about our environment also changed.If you were born before the late 20th century, you were born with innate gifts. A great painter was born a great painter. Training was simply a way to bring out the genius in you.If you were an idiot, you were better off finding a mindless job to at least survive. Sorry, you lost the lottery. Now watch my cattle, homie.This is the genius cult at large.The last several decades have shown huge jumps in neuroscience, which are now challenging this. If you were born a couple decades earlier, your brain would've been believed to stop growing after your early 20s. Today, it's clear that it never stops changing.An illustration of this is meditation. Scientists have discovered that putting in hours meditating can change your brain. Let's just take a moment to fully absorb this thought. You sit down in front of your grandiose Buddhism/Steve Jobs poster, close your eyes, and focus. What happens next is that, according to science...You are literally thinking your brain to change. Mind. Blown.So it's now accepted that we can change.One big cultural indicator of acceptance is how popular the 10,000 hour rule is. Anders Ericsson comes up with it, Malcolm Gladwell popularises it, Macklemore then makes a song from it. Boom, big time.Maybe 10,000 isn't a perfect number; it might not even be close, but the point still stands. Our environment and what we know about our environment allows us to have control over our future.Our environment will let us reach our goals. In fact, our environment wants us to reach our goals. Times like these have been rare in history.