You may have branded yourself Catholic, but by george you are not.
Catholics are not "sheeple". We are people.
Everyone who decided to become Catholic did so because they made that decision on their own. They understood the results of such an action. What are the fruits of a good Catholic?
Obedience.
Now, does that necessarily follow that all Catholics are mindless androids? God forbid. Yet, we have an understanding that says that disobedience caused sin to enter the world. The Blessed Virgin Mary brought Christ into the world through obedience. Jesus Christ obliterated the kingdom of death on Earth to open salvation unto men through doing the Will of the Father in all things. His Perfect Obedience was the salvation unto all those who would accept His Kingdom.
The great Saints of the Church saw this, and afterwards saw the uselessness of the world, and the usefulness of mortification. In their outward appearance, there may be suffering, but the souls of the Saints are the happiest that can exist here on Earth.
As for you, OP, you have shown that you do not desire to be obedient. Catholics decide they will be obedient, even to a blind degree if necessary. That is not something the world likes to hear.
Oh, and Protestants are definitely not happier than true Catholics. They live their lives in constant hatred, disobedience and dishonesty. Their pride stinks onto high heavens, and it causes their demeanor to smell as well.
https://archive.org/stream/catholicandprot00youngoog#page/n34/mode/2upHistorically speaking, success is not what makes a country. It's to what extent a country can act in a unilateral fashion.
Protestant countries absolutely deplore acting in a unilateral function. They only are expressing their own divisions among themselves, which are far too numerous to count here.