Does Existence Always Bring Unhappiness?

I’ve been thinking about the  Four Noble Truths in Buddhism. The first of which is: Existence is unhappiness.

I can’t really get my head round this: why has there to be unhappiness?  I feel that I’m mostly happy but, there again, as with most people, I’ve had moments of great sadness.

As often happens when we dwell on something, I started reading something - The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha with a commentary by E,A, Burtt. No idea where I got the book from but it’s been in a pile for, well, several years,

Anyway, E.A Burtt writes:

All very well, but how do we overcome these ‘evils’. Perhaps if we truly believed in eternity, I thought, maybe that would be the answer. Eternity would mean that sickness, the deaths of loved ones and so on would be only temporary. For the sickness would be overcome and we would see our loved ones again in eternity.

E.A Burtt writes, however,

Not sure about that but, to cut a long story and waffle short, the answer to our inevitable unhappiness is treading the eight steps of the right path. These are:

1. Right understanding
2. Right purpose
3. Right speech
4. Right conduct
5. Right vocation
6. Right effort
7. Right alertness
8. Right concentration

This would ultimately lead to us no longer being subject to rebirth and we would enter Nirvana.

Okay, but Nirvana is also eternity, which is what I suggested we should perhaps believe in, to overcome those ‘evils’.

But what is Nirvana?

I’ve rambled on for long enough. But does existence here on Earth have to equate to unhappiness? Surely not.

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