Happiness, Part 2

Happiness Is…

Happiness (noun): the state of being happy.

To me, happiness is putting my feet up after a long day and enjoying a home cooked meal, a glass of wine, and a good book.

Happy (adjective): feeling or showing content.

As part of some preparation I’ve been doing for a research paper for my class in ‘The Philosophy of Happiness’, but mostly out of my own curiosity, I recently reached out to friends and family around the world via social media networking and asked them to answer the simple question ‘What is Happiness to you?’
This was not an attempt to define happiness; on the contrary, I am trying to understand it. What does it mean to other people and how can we hope to achieve it?
I had an overhelming response from good friends sharing with me their notion of happiness:

Happiness is…
-“Being surrounded by family and friends that care about me. I wouldn't be happy without them.”
-“Not necessarily having everything you want, but being so content with what you have or what you are doing that you don’t have this burning want for anything else.”
-“Living in the moment and worrying about repercussions later. Living the fullest, most exciting, most entertaining life possible because life is short and eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we (may) die!”
-“Happiness of others can trigger an incredibly powerful happiness within you.”
-“Appreciating all of the things you have and the people around you. Understanding how much they mean to you. Knowing that the world is full of amazing things and opportunities, and that every experience (good or bad) can improve who you are.”
-“Being mindful, at peace and grateful in moments when you maybe have reason not to be. Being happy no matter where you are, not because you're where you'd like to be. To me, happiness is not synonymous with perfection. Hah but things approaching perfection can easily make people happy.”
-“It’s easy to feel but hard to describe in totality. This may sound simple but it’s the only comprehensive definition I could think of. To feel positive about every aspect of life, even if some of those aspects aren’t where you'd like them to be, the majority are and as such those minority aspects cant bring you down.”
-“Feeling in control of your life and your circumstances.”
-“When my thoughts and beliefs are in sync with what I say and do”
-“Happiness is when you can't help but smile at this wonderful life -- when you get that whole body tingling of utter content with the world, with your life, and you consequently spill a little happy, a little love, and a little sparkle on everyone you encounter. Happiness is that glimmer in our eyes. You know it when you see it. And it’s hella contagious.”
-“Happiness is life in general.”

The hardest part about defining happiness, philosophically or otherwise, is the differentiation between feeling happy and living a happy life. One would assume that the former would lead to the latter. But feelings are fleeting, and if a moment of happiness passes with no lasting impact on your life as a whole, can it then contribute to a happy life overall? Contrarily, a happy life overall is most often measured in success, rather than accumulated feelings of happiness, and if a happy life is more about successfully accomplishing one’s desires and less about quantifying the amount of times or the measure of happy feelings one felt in their lifetime, then the fleeting feelings of happiness become unimportant and irrelevant.

I do not believe this is the case. It cannot be. Because feeling happy is the driving force for most actions and reactions. We desperately try to define happiness so that we can use that framework as a guidance for how to go through life and how to interact with others. We try to act in ways that would make others happy, and avoid actions we know would do the opposite. Or at least we should.

Happiness cannot be defined. It can’t be measured and it can’t be explained. It can only be felt. And though those feelings might be fleeting, we treasure them. We try each and every day to grasp that feeling for however long we are lucky enough to hold it.

Of all the friends that shared with me their notions of happiness, one stood out to me most:
“Happiness is a privilege. It is not constant. When you are truly happy, you may not remember to appreciate it because it is easy. It's soothing, it feels like everything is right in your world. But when you lose it, even temporarily, you remember that no one can be happy all day for their entire life. Happiness doesn't exist in a happily ever after sense. Happiness exists in perfect moments. Some moments last longer than others but it is such a blessing during that moment.”