What is Happiness?

Answer 1

A fleeting emotion.

Answer 2

What is Happiness?

A puzzling situation:
Billy won the lottery. A cool $25 million! He appeared to be a good man with a good character. Of the many types of people who might have won, his friends were happy it was Billy. But two years later he was arrested for drunk driving, resisting arrest, soliciting a prostitute, and having drugs in his car. The arrests continued over the next few years. The excitement of winning did not grow into a lifelong happiness.

Tom, a successful businessman, was a loner who worked long hours, saving and re-investing most of his profits. He was disliked for his independence and envied for his wealth. Yet his was a life full of contentment and happiness. Why does wealth bring happiness to some and misery to others?

If wealth is not a shortcut to happiness, what about sacrificing for others? Terry volunteers at the soup kitchen 6 days /week, 52 weeks a year, but hates it, hates her life, and has grown especially bitter towards the people she serves. Dora, an engineer, never does volunteer work. If she gives to charity, she does so very selectively and sparingly. Acquaintances envious of her success call her selfish. Yet Dora is very happy.

There are many people who we think should be happy but are not. (Billy the ``lucky" lottery winner and Terry the ``serious" volunteer.)

There are many people who we think should be miserable but are not. (Tom the ``loner" businessman and Dora the ``selfish" engineer.)

Some people who seem to have nothing are very happy. Some people who seem to have everything are not. Yet some jet-setters seem happy while some moral crusaders have become miserable old grouches. Happiness seems very unpredictable, inconsistent, irrational.

What follows is an explanation as to the rational basis of happiness.

Happiness
Happiness is an emotion. So is sadness, love, hate, curiosity, revulsion, excitement, jealousy, contentment, depression, anxiety, fear, guilt and anger. All emotions have causes, causes which can be understood and controlled.

The emotion of happiness is not caused simply by entertaining your whims. (Whims are an obstacle to happiness.) Happiness is not merely a life lived by accumulating moments of pleasure. On the contrary, happiness is a long lasting enduring enjoyment of life, it is being in love with living. It is your reward for achieving a good character and personal rational values in life. Some important values are a productive career, romance, friendship and hobbies.

Achieving these values requires rationality and takes effort and skill. Two types of skills you can use are thinking skills and valuing skills.

Once you learn to have confidence in your own mind and once you discover the virtues that make it possible for you to achieve your values and that make your life worth living, then you will experience the result - an earned pride and a genuine self-esteem. And of course happiness.

For more information on achieving happiness through rationality, follow the links on this page. If you feel you need professional help, go to "How to Choose a Therapist". You can also ask Dr. Kenner a question, listen to her radio show, and subscribe to her newsletter. Recommended reading

Definition
A definition of happiness is included within the quote at the top of this page.

Answer 3

Thank you for an innocuous looking but quite the most important question in life!!

Happiness is often confused with the emotion of joy. Not at all.... happiness is a much deeper concept.

The closest to happiness is peace of mind. Again, not the peace of mind that comes from having solved a ticklish problem or arising from any event for that matter.... in other words, just an event based removal of a disturbing factor is not happiness. Happiness arises from our attitude to life which through knowledge and experience learns to take adversities in life with the same equanimity as the positives arising from the life. It is a balanced state of mind which remains mostly undisturbed irrespective of events and results arising in life. It is therefore a balance of mind that lasts due to the attitude of accepting pluses and minuses coming from life in about an equal measure.

Answer 4

I think that happiness is something that is determined by the individual on their scale of how they have felt in the past. To me, happiness is simply when i feel calm, peaceful, inspired, loving life, and other similar feelings that words might not exactly cover, since i don't think they can truly cover anything. Most of all i think happiness is what i live life to feel! :)

Your brother, Nate

Answer 5

there is no answer to that question. everyone has a different definition of what makes them happy. some people are happy when they see a painting, some are happy when they see the person they love, some are happy when they molest kids. its a difficult thing to unravel, so there is no one answer here that will be correct. happiness is whatever makes life suck the least for you personally, not what some goober on yahoo answers says.

Answer 6

Happiness is an enduring balance & peaceful state that comes from true acceptance of yourself & your station in life. It is not the same thing as Joy or pleasure.

Answer 7

Look at my picture (sad photo), i am trying to find one.

Serious part:
There is two man, one is rich and one is poor.
The rich man a workaholic, never rest, and very ambitious to add his money. While the poor one work not overloaded, like what he had. Who is happy? ..............

If you answer one of them, you are wrong. The two just happy about what they do.

Now like the above illustration but little different:
Because the rich one are rich, he always afraid of robbers, afraid losing his market, he do not have any friends because he can not trust anyone and afraid eliminated by his rivals. So he lost lot of money hiring bodyguards to secure his property and himself. While the poor one, altough he is poor doesn't to worried anything, he 'got money to eat everyday', if he do not have any money he got a lot friends helping him. He is do

If you anwer one of them again, are you sure? You don't ask them, why you can dicided one is happy and onother is not (note: if they not give you lie answer). Just kidding! but to me, I don't want to be the rich one in this case.

To me happy is inside yourself, doesn't matter you rich or poor, pretty or ugly, whereever you are, as long you happy.

Happy itself can not describe clearly because 'happy to one man can not called happy by other', if you insist to discribe, to me happy is 'the one which can be passion of life', because if you sad deeply and do not had any happinessin your life, you might wants to just end your life. Happiness also satisfied with what you had.

May all of us had happiness

Answer 8

A feeling of contentment is happiness to me. When one feels satisfied with his or her life that's when happiness arrives. That's why happiness is different for everyone.

Answer 9

Happiness is the absence of fear, insecurity and other negative emotions. So this makes us think. Is there real and true happiness? Maybe for a short while, yes. For a long time? I doubt it. =)

Answer 10

Happiness is a frame of mind.

Answer 11

Simply gratifying ones self is the most fleeting, disatisfying happiness. Happiness is the desire to bring joy to others. Even this is fleeting. True, eternal happiness of the soul is the desire to bring joy to God.