Wow great question is the answer in psychology or philosophy?

Maybe the answer is in the Dung?

My happiest childhood memories are when I was the dirtiest , the muddiest, the most engaged.

Just watch what make children happy.

Anyway in the spirit of the question and debate here are my answers

1) The formula of happiness

   Pleasure + engagement + meaning = Happiness

2) The forms of happiness

  Relationships, contentment, security, money, health, transcendence, fulfilment

3) The brain chemicals of happiness

  Dopamine, Opioid

4) The politics of happiness

  Governments have succeeded in delivering greater and greater wealth but is that how we should be measuring them?

Maybe we should be judging governments on how happy they make the population?

have a happy day

Skip

I find Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's comments about happiness in his book on "Flow" incontrovertibly true for me - they mesh with what Skip's written above. But I've always wondered whether the things that make me happy (hope and challenge are two particular requirements) hold true for others. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

A great quote to end this comment with comes from William Saroyan: "Happiness is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness."

I think there's a key inquiry here, and that is, what would make a Maasai tribe member happy, vs. what would make one of the richest Americans happy? Obviously the answers are very different, and must correlate with their values (what they think are important). In the model of psychological development I'm most familiar with, Spiral Dynamics, it proposes that we evolve in consciousness in terms of ability to handle more and more complexity in our lives. So a person running a huge US corporation would likely have quite a bit more capacity to handle complexity in their lives (in terms of left-brained thinking, etc.) than an average Maasai tribe member. In fact, one of the levels of development that SD describes is called "strive-drive", and that set of values would almost certainly not be satisfied with what they have, because their goal is to always strive to get more.

I like Leigh's quotation by Saroyan, because as we move into more and more complex levels of values, it becomes very clear that happiness isn't necessarily the 'goal'. I'm reminded of a great quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." I think that's where true happiness lies.

Happiness seems to be hard for me to define for myself. Enjoyment pleasure, contentment, engagement are all things which I identify with as parts of what creates a happiness condition for me.  I am mostly content and engaged in my work and am not unhappy - but does that equate to being happy.

Wealth does not equate to happiness - however poverty without any survival skills might equate to unhappiness.

Truly joyous moments are rare and very memorable for me - But they have be generally the natural and all encompassing  things simple like sailing in strong wind, or hitting a golf ball and hearing that special whack that informs you that you have made a great shot.

It is great to read others opinion of this topic.

Extremely engaging blog. I love to think, talk , read about happiness , subjective well being.

This may be a bit side tracking from the original question, but related. I am extremely interested in the comment Ben Levi made about "complexity" and "capacity".  A person from a huge US cooperation (versus tribe member) having relatively more capacity (in terms of left-brain thinking)  to handle complexity in their lives.

Do we assume corporate person faces more complexity? Or, Tribe members can handle different but same magnitude of complexity while handling it with right brain? Switch the places,  these people will not have the capacity to handle complexity in each other's spaces. But this does not make one or the other space less or more complex.Or capacities of persons more or less. It is different. Is it easy to map human behavior according to left and right brain attributes and outcomes? I guess easiest is behavioral dualisms between women and men.

Left and right side of the brain ( I am novice in Psychology dept) probably conditioned by social and material environment. Dealing with different kind of complexity must not make one or the other having less capacity.... This is at least what I get from Oliver Holmes' quote

Hope we all enjoy searching for simplicity in and around complexity.