Game the system by having an unhappy childhood so being an adult is so much better? I enjoy being a grownup so much. What are you unhappy with? Were you happy as a kid and if so, what made you happy? I didn't like school, felt alienated and in general kids have no control over their own lives. So adulthood suits me much better.

i think that you have to make happiness and its ingredients depends on what makes you happy & healthy.

it ends up becoming a bit like brewing beer in that you keep testing different combinations and different methods with those ingredients to brew your beer and sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don't; but the more you keep at it the more often you get it right than wrong.

at some point you start getting excited at the prospect of trying some new combination, method, or ingredient and i think that, if you reach that stage, it'll become self fulfilling.

Outdoor hobbies. I've got really into foraging, which has multiple benefits, I get to be outside, I get exercise, I learn new things which stimulates my brain, and if I'm lucky I also get free food (which is usually superior in taste and nutrition to store bought). I combine it with hiking, fishing, geocaching etc and if I'm alone I sometimes listen to music on my headphones. Once you start developing outdoor hobbies it's like you unlock an insanely intricate open world video game.

I just recently quit my job and it's got me thinking about app development around this idea.

Kind of surprised no one has mentioned it... But kids. Kids bring a lot of happiness.

I find happiness getting lost in projects, projects being anything & everything from writing to designing to stuff around the house to whatever. Just something that gets me obsessed for at least a few days or weeks. I can’t predict when it will happen, it just has to be a sufficient problem for me to look at.

I also find happiness with some people, but that sort of happiness is unpredictable as well since people have their own lives going on and feelings can change over time. Getting too close to people though can just as easily make my life feel meaningless and make me depressed when things turn sour. I tend to crave affection and physical touch, so this is a hard one for me to just ignore this.

Reflecting and seeing improvement in my being.

Discovering my own intuition, and following it to sometimes scary situations. Doing so from a comfortable base I can retreat to when needed.

For me it's about pursuing hobbies and having new experiences. I really enjoy developing new skills and seeing myself improve, and doing things I haven't done before.

It's either drugs or not having a shitty childhood, unfortunately I'm the wrong person to ask

Motorcycles. No kids. Enough sleep. A good partner. Music. Videogames. Good friends (who know each other). Lots of projects.

sleep

(and occasional life achievements or events, like yesterday)

Find your thing.

For me that's been different things as I've gone through life. Currently in my 50s and enjoying riding a motorbike at weekends. When I'd ridden all the local roads so many times it was starting to get boring, I added another layer and am now riding my bike to every Village in my county. It's going to take a while, but has given another layer of interest and purpose. Many people won't understand why it's interesting to me, and that's fine, they don't have to. Finding what works for you is half the challenge.

BTW, if you've got depression, then finding happiness without resolving that is really, really difficult. Been there and absolutely everything felt bleak and pointless. Fixing that is the first step.

Health. :)

Online political partisanship

You don’t find happiness. It comes and goes. Imagine being happy all the time; it would just become normal. You need non happy times to appreciate the happy times.

As someone that is either very happy or very sad, I find happiness in my hobbies. I need my mind to be occupied to pass the time, but then there is the thought I’m just waiting to die and passing time.

Hobbies that make me happy are:

• Indoor bouldering (rock climbing) is the only thing I’ve found that lets me escape the constant train of thought and be in the moment. It’s a nerdy hobby as lots of problem solving mixed with strength training.
• Running
• Rubiks cube
• Lego
• Cross stitch
• Paint by numbers
• 3D printing
• learning
• many more but this is getting long.

As someone who is down a lot of the time and has ADHD but stopped the meds as the side affects were worse than living with ADHD; I’ve found that routine is a massive thing required to be content with life. Consistent bed time and wake time. I am not a morning person but after 18 months of waking at 07:30 or 06:00, depending on if I’m taking the train to work, that I now wake up a few minutes before my alarm quite often; I’m still tired and I hate it but it gets easier.

Spending time with other people is key too. I find if I’m down it’s usually cause I’ve been alone a lot (which I love) and that can be bad for me so I’ll go see friends even if I don’t want to just to engage.

Luckily I can spot when I’m spiralling. I have an urge to fire up Minecraft and live vicariously through Steve and shut out the world.

Hobbies, do things you like to do. If you don't have any yet then have some fun figuring out new things to see what clicks for you

Happiness is not found. It's not an object, rather a state of perception. The more you'll objectify and discretize happiness, the less likely you're to achieve it.

That being said, usually drugs.

On a serious note, two books helped me to understand this mystery a bit more

1. Zen Mind, beginner's mind by S. Suzuki
2. Flow: the psychology of optimal experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Small things. Sounds. The temperature of the air. The fact that my side isn't hurting right now. The kids costumes who were just trick or treating at my house.

Happiness is fleeting. Sometimes you're happy, sometimes you're not. I was told as a young man that what I should seek instead is contentment, because someone content with their place in life will be happier more often. That said, a lot of people find satisfaction and happiness from helping others. Volunteering, and being a part of your community gives someone a sense of belonging, and purpose.

Happiness is fleeting, like other emotions, it comes and goes. Focusing on it is like chasing a wave.

Understanding your own values and what you find meaningful is essential for moving through life, because we're not in control. Stuff happens, and we get to deal with it.

I found happiness. I am almost done with it. You want it after me?

Eating people. Eating family and friends, eating vagrants, eating the needy. Some people can even taste the camaraderie of the people they work with.

It comes down to eating people and if you have trouble just eat people. You know what they say hungry people eat people.

Gratitude and helping others

A few years ago, my wife and I left the Mormon church. That helped a lot. Along that line coffee makes me happy.

I‘m completely switching up my life right now to live to 87 to be able to watch the total eclipse on my birthday

Hobbies, spending time wirh friends and families, eating, murdering vagrants, helping the needy, and some people even enjoy comraderie with people they work with.

It comes down to figuring out what makes you happy and if you have trouble you just need to try new things.

By finding not happiness, but contentment. As you get older, you learn that to be happy, you have to be content.

It seems that happiness is something in one's mind, an internal state. I've seen people happy who have very little, and the opposite. Happiness is therefore a perception. The mind is the lens through which we perceive everything, so focusing the lens at the right things and ensuring it's a clean lens are the right starting point to "finding" happiness.

Cleaning the lens: Eat well, sleep well, exercise.

These three fundamentals lay the foundation of a clean lens. If you do the above, you have created the best physical conditions for your mind. You are unfortunately a chemical creature, so the physical state of your brain is critical to all pursuits, including perception of reality.

The next step is pointing the lens at the right things, stay tuned for our next episode!

Realize you aren't going to be happy all the time. We live a life that sometimes sucks. Our grandparents, our parents, our siblings, and our friends die. Choose to remember the happy times you had with them. Go do things you like to do, remember those times when shit is bad and know that you can make more happy memories later too.

Find happiness in love, from people, from pets, maybe even your children if you choose to have some. Make others happy too if you want because happiness is better when shared with others.

i tried checking at walmart, but they haven't carried it since the early 1970s