Is distress necessary to find happiness?

I was reading an article this morning and this question was asked.. It got me thinking..

Distressful times can fill the mind with sorrowful thoughts, thoughts of better days...days when things were ‘great’ and you were ‘happy’ How you yearn for those days to return, and secretly fear you may never be happy again

Experiences that make us cry, feel sorrow or pain, strip us of our ability to control our emotions the way we’ve become accustomed to. We feel raw and vulnerable, and want to hide away until the feeling passes

Yet, that aside...on an average day, on a scale of 1- 10 how happy are you?
How much do you really enjoy the things you do, the people you're around, your work your love etc. Arguably I would suggest that many people may score quite low… why? Because more often than not people speak to complain, moan, pull faces of distress discomfort and rarely smile( plastic smiles not included) … people complain about their partners, being too fat, that they’re not earning enough and fret about debts.

So, when we look back during times of distress, were those ‘good times’ really as 'good' as we thought?
Why then didn’t we enjoy them more?
Why didn’t we smile more, be more thankful, why did we moan so much?.
Perhaps our painful experiences do teach us happiness. Perhaps they teach us to be thankful, teach us how to love, show us our failings, and help us to grow.
Perhaps