About true happiness

Are you happy? Content with your life? Comfortable in your own skin?

The authors of the book Creating Optimism say that we're taught in school and by the media to want things that don't bring us true happiness. "Society is based not on purpose but on the pleasure principle: the good life is one in which there is more pleasure than pain, more good feeling than bad. If you can structure your life so that you maximize your immediate pleasure, then all will be well."

Whether you buy what they are saying or not, I suspect you and I can agree that media messages do try to sell us on the idea that certain things will bring us happiness: making lots of money, buying certain products, being thin and sexy (as women), etc. Most of us have learned that this simply isn't so.

What makes you happy? And what does happiness mean anyway? Is it more about contentment, satisfaction and serenity than about being bubbly, laughing a lot and enjoying the good life?

And if you see it as contentment and deep-down joy, how do you achieve that? I would love to hear your views on this—and hear how you got (or plan to get) to that state. Are you willing to share them with us below in the Comment box?