Happiness is a feeling that makes you feel good

Life is full of pain. You stub your toe, lose a friend, end a relationship. It's just the way it is. And yet, as human adults, we have a tendency to take each of these setbacks and file them away, almost as a painful reminder that everything good ends up hurting, sooner or later. So what's a girl to do when good things happen? I wait for the other shoe to drop, imagining the inevitable demise of this temporary and fleeting happiness. And that sucks.
But what is happiness, anyway? I thought it would be fun to wiki it. Hmmmm...

Happiness is a feeling that makes you feel good.
Philosophers and religious thinkers have often defined happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this older sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics. In everyday speech today, however, terms such as well-being or quality of life are usually used to signify the classical meaning, and happiness is reserved for the felt experience or experiences that philosophers historically called pleasure.
Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings, which focuses on obtaining freedom from suffering by following the Eightfold Path. In the Buddhist view, ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. Aristotle saw happiness as "the virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with reason," or the practice of virtue. In Catholicism, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity, or "blessed happiness", described by the 13th-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life.[1] One psychological approach, positive psychology, describes happiness as consisting of positive emotions and positive activities.
While direct measurement of happiness is difficult, tools such as The Oxford Happiness Inventory have been developed by researchers. Physiological correlates to happiness can be measured through a variety of techniques, and survey research can be based on self-reported happiness levels.
Research has identified a number of correlates with happiness. These include religious involvement, parenthood, marital status, age and income. Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating how successful public policy is.

Good Lord. Even happiness needs to be measured to quantify it enough that we completely remove the human, feeling aspect of it. Happiness economics? What the hell? So here's PGs take on happiness, in a nutshell.

I'm happy when I have waffles and scotch for breakfast at the Driftwood

I'm happy when I open my eyes to an alarm clock that says it's later than 8am

I'm happy when I have a laptop, a mocha and a warm pair of socks, all at the same time

I'm happy when I stomp in puddles. Even if my socks squish - that makes me happier still.

I'm happy when I get a text message from a friend

I'm happy when I say I love you to my son (because I mean it - I never say it if I don't)

I'm happy when I'm reading a good book that I can't put down

I'm happy playing scrabble. Really, really happy. Even when I lose.

I'm happy listening to portishead

I'm happy sitting at the bar at Gino's (too bad they're not open all day...)

I'm happy shopping for presents for the people I love

I'm happy when I work and do something that matters

I'm happy walking my Ezmond through the leaves

I'm happy when I send a note in the mail and put a stamp on it

I'm happy when the phone doesn't ring for an entire 24 hours

I'm happy in the tub with my bubbles

I'm happy when I finish a project

I'm happy when I paint- wall or canvas

I'm happy when I sharpen pencils

I'm happy when I figure out a difficult problem

I'm happy when I rub buddah's belly - even though buddhism says happiness is the complete removal of craving from my life. Why would I want to do that? If not for cravings there would be no Ben & Jerrys.

OK - take my list (and this is just a partial one that I spent less than 5 minutes creating) and hold it up against the definition. Do I really defy explanation that much? 18 months ago, happiness was fleeting and rare - sometimes I wouldn't see it for days, even weeks. I had things. Lots of things. And enough money to thrive, savings accounts, the ability to do and see and shop. Today, even without a permanent job, a place to live, a car I can afford, the savings gone, I have found so many things in my day that make me happy - and every day it gets better. The happier I am, the happier I get. Not that the chaos isn't making me nutty. Not that I am happy to be poor, unable to do the things I want to do, staring at a pile of medical bills I can't pay and working through my son's health issues, my daughters anxiety, my need to feel loved. And yet there it is, plain as day. I'm happy.