What is happiness, and how can we make ourselves happier?

[Northerner]

If you’re a human being, I suspect you want to be happy. What is happiness for you? Happiness for me is reminiscing about good times with a friend while I indulge in some Nando’s chicken, or receiving a standing ovation at the end of a theatre performance. My versions of happiness may not be your cup of tea, but the stimulus for happiness is subjective and thus hard to measure objectively.

What is the definition of happiness?
“Happiness” is not only hard to measure, but it is also difficult to singularly define. You can’t define happiness without using a synonym for happiness, and you can’t interpret it to everyone’s satisfaction. Oxford dictionaries’ Captain Obvious definition for happiness is “the feeling of being happy”.

So if the feeling of happiness is hard to define, then what? The solution to understanding feelings like happiness is through examination and experimentation, and by that I mean science.

Compared with misery, happiness has come out virtually unscathed in the study of social science. A quick Wiley Online Library search reveals 50,522 results for the word “happiness”, compared with 409,708 for the word “depression”.

http://www.newstatesman.com/lifesty...ppiness-and-how-can-we-make-ourselves-happier

 

[HOBIE]

Flat out on a Windsurfer. I had what they called a sinker, if you stood on it to pull the sail up it would sink. Water start & then off like a rocket