HOW DO YOU DEFINE HAPPINESS??

I wouldn't know how to explain exactly what happiness really is generally, as the experience could mean different things to different people. I do believe that you have experience happiness at some point in your life.

Personally when I think of happiness most times, I don't think of it as a feeling which is temporary in terms of I'm watching a comedy and I'm laughing which translates to I'm happy literally. No, that's not happiness to me. My heart could be heavy with a serious burden at the moment.

When I think of happiness, I think of it as a state of existence, as a state of being and I think of it as an emotion, not as a feeling.

Let me attempt to make it clearer ...

If I say happiness is a feeling, then I can say at some point "I feel happy" and then at another point like next minute, I can say "I feel sad".

But when I talk of happiness in terms of an emotion, then I can say "I am happy" just like it's a state of being for me. Next minute someone might annoy me and I get angry, but when I am done feeling angry, I return to my state of being which is happiness.

I think my explanation of happiness is all mixed up trying to explain there is a difference between Feeling and Emotion but I don't want to get things complicated.

The two times I remember finding myself in this state of being is first, when I was in Love (My first relationship) and second, when I first had a taste of Independence (that's living on my own).

I'm not disputing dictionary meaning of happiness, I'm just trying to create my own definition from my personal experience, but it's still a struggle though.

Have you ever thought of it before? How do you define Happiness???