Hey Ted, thank you so much for reading and your feedback/qustions. Very important questions indeed.

I don't think happiness is the same thing as just being pleased or satisfied with things. Happiness, in my view, is a skill more than a state of being. We learn to be happy through all sorts of trauma and hardship. Happiness must not be fleeting, or it's no happiness at all. Happiness must not be dependent upon external circumstances or it's not quite real.

Happiness is the abillity to maintain good spirits and a calm, rational head throughout a variety of situations and environments. Happiness is human adaptability to situations.

Like love, love is a verb—one that's been nominalized into a noun (like "running" or "going for a walk" have been nominalized). Happiness, too, is a verb that we nominalize to encapsualte a prolonged period of continuous behavior. Love doesn't happen in an instant. Neither does happiness.

The good thing about these kinds of studies is the participants get to define their own happiness. So maybe esse est sensus?

Just thinkin' aloud.

Cheers.