[everdev]

Happiness is an emotion, it comes and goes. Even the premise of "are you happy?" is missing the point.

Are we talking about feeling happiness twice as much as feeling sadness? 4x, 10x? Sadness can come from things outside our control.

I think a better goal is are you present? Are you listening to yourself and to what you really want for your life?

Everyone will want different things but making an emotion the goal is a fools errand.

[elcomet]

I don't believe happiness is an emotion. Joy is an emotion, it comes and goes. But happiness is more than this, it can be a perpetual state of consciousness and comes in parallel to emotions.

[ljm]

I like to see that as fulfilment, or contentment.

[TomMarius]

Thank you. This might seem trivial but I was struggling to put my thoughts about this into words for several weeks.

[parylose]

That reminds me of a Billy Joel (singer) interview. He said he was always asked if he was happy now and he stressed out when he couldn't answer yes. He ended up pursuing happiness at high cost. He eventually realized just because he wasn't happy didn't mean he was sad. Happiness and sadness are extremes. Most of the time you just are. He learned to just be and appreciate the happy times.

[CrazyPyroLinux]

The Oatmeal did a great comic on this, which I think illustrates your point perfectly: https://theoatmeal.com/static/unhappy.html