It is a very good question for a person to ask and seek for some answers in a wide prospective. The question is a very striking, at the same time a very simple question to answer.
What happiness is might be responded in two ways and then the methods to reach happiness can be argued accordingly. First happiness is simply a positive feeling that your body gets aware of. It is the feeling of fulfillment, excitement, fun, joy or etc. The status of our body (mostly brain provides it) goes into a level, we feel that kind, and it comes back to neutral or more fixed status again. In this respect, happiness represents some moments that we are feeling, and aware of.
Second, happiness is an exclusive phenomenon which can be portrayed with a retrospective general look into our more recent or less recent personal history. We see ourselves as a story, evaluate and comment on our recent and past issues, and give a general outline of our history and we conclude that we have a happy, or good or bad lives.
When the concept is reckoned like that, the moments of happiness is a bit far from to compose or cover most of the parts of our lives. It is very good to have many more happy moments as much as we can. Yet, there are some restrictions on the “momentarily happiness” and we cannot capture these feelings all the times. Therefore happiness -I described it as feeling much of the goodness, you can check the book of Antonio Damasio- cannot be the aim or ultimate point of the life.
Happiness can be an output that we desire for, but an ordinary, healthy (without people or environmental violance) lives, the lives with stability should be more important, while we are having our times. It is definitely a must to have better lives, and a must to be able to describe our lives as happy ones. But, it cannot form the central columns of our lives by only itself. Because having good and satisfying feelings all the time is not either possible, since the resources of the happiness are not so reachable. In addition, our physical, brain capacity does not, cannot fulfill some sort of phenomenon or generate it all the time. It is a nature restricted base for not take the happiness as a central aim.
So if the moments of happiness are important but these moments are limited for our happiness in general, what may bring happiness in a broader sense?
If the happiness can be tied to a broader area in our lives, it should be thought that it should be connected to some of the central issues in our lives. So, we should refer to some outstanding properties from our lives. Accordingly, there are two main properties that humans have. First is being a part of a community, society such as a family. The happiness is for an ordinary human to be a member of a group which could be a family (because, this is one of the most powerful ones I think). We can see that every part of life. It is the explanation why the social media sites are so popular. It is also related to why we always want to show off. Because we are always wanted to be seen and heard.
Second is physical movement. To move physically and mentally (both are physical) are very essential for sustainable better feelings in our body and existence. When we move physically, it can be walking, travelling, cleaning the house, occupying some daily routine, we feel better overall (of course there should be some limitations and moderation through the physical and mental movement to avoid burn out).
When these two properties are combined, we can have this vision for the happiness: Lasting movement within a social frame. So we need to run some tasks with physical movement as much as possible. The tasks are vital to be happy which had better been together with short term and long term tasks together. I think it is a must to have something that we can take it as a serious thing in our lives. And it must offer some challenging, not too hard or too easy tasks to handle. This could be having a child (if the conditions are okay, but it could be harder than it be thought) for example, a bit hard but serious thing in the life. As a conclusion moving both physically and mentally within a social matter (but mostly physically) is very very important for humans related to happiness. It brings the happiness most of the time when it is tried.
