What a great post! As you know, I've asked the question on Twitter and on my blog: "how do you define happiness?" I've gotten hugely varying responses. There are people who see happiness as the pleasurable sensation they're feeling in any given moment, and those who see it as more of an overall contentedness with life despite the ups and downs we all face every day (that's me). But your post brings another dimension into the question, because if it's an overall feeling of contentedness, what does "contentedness" look like? Or if you define happiness as the way you feel in any given moment, which sensations or feelings count as "happy"? I have been working hard to train myself and my kids away from the idea that there always has to be some huge, exciting event to make us really happy; that happiness comes from inside us and can be found in the small quiet moments just as readily as the big loud ones. I think kids understand that instinctively; it's our culture that beats that appreciation of the small things out of them.