How do you know if you are happy?

What is happiness? How does it feel? This is just another emotion I have no clue about. People tell me I am not a happy person so I'll always ask them how do you be a happy person? What does it take to have feelings of happiness? How does it feel? No one has yet given me an adequate explanation.

I've had a few girlfriends who I thought made me happy but the truth is what they did was just lessen the mental pain I have always felt. Seldom has anyone made me totally forget the mental pain. The only thing that's ever done that is adrenaline. The more of an adrenaline rush I can get the better I feel.

However adrenaline gets harder and harder to come by. Example of this is I was driving west on Interstate 90 in South Dakota. It was raining lightly, below freezing and the wind was from my right at around 45 mph. Lol, I was doing the usual 79 mph, smoking a cigarette and driving one handed as always.

All of a sudden I hit a slick spot and my car started sliding sideways. I corrected for the slide, calmly reached down and put my cigarette in the ashtray, meanwhile the car starts sliding in the opposite direction and the wind is pushing me toward the south shoulder of the interstate. Still steering with one hand I finally got the cigarette in the ashtray and got the car straightened out at the same time. Didn't even bother to take the cruise control off.

About another mile down the road it happened again and this time I got completely sideways but was able to control it again with no real problem. I even considered slowing down but hey, it was a couple of freak things so I didn't care. Then it happened again and was a little more difficult to get control off but still no big deal, to me.

No adrenaline rush from that at all but I did have a big grin on my face. Was I stupid for not slowing down? Certainly. Did I put anyone else in danger? Nope traffic was pretty sparse due to the freezing rain. Did it make me happy? Nope, not a bit.

Is happiness just a lack of bad feelings? Is it as simple as not being depressed? Just what the hell is happiness and how do you get it? I have a warm/cool place to live, I get enough to eat and have enough to support myself for a long time, I have a decent car and plenty of clothes etc. People tell me I should be very happy for what I have but it's just stuff.

For sure it beats the hell out of being homeless and hungry and I'm grateful for that but it doesn't seem to make me a happy person. I truly want to be a happy person but there don't seem to be any guide books on how to be happy.

I'm seldom in a truly bad mood but at best my moods mostly stop at neutral. Helping others with their life problems or stopping them from being abused makes me feel good for a bit but it doesn't last long and I don't have a clue if that's happy or not. I can only think of one time that I had great feelings and a big grin for hours but that was due to making 300 bucks on the net while I was taking a nap for an hour and a half. It was my first good day on the net and it felt great. People tell me that's how I should feel all the time.

Money doesn't buy happiness. Having things doesn't make me happy. I've had more things than most people ever will. New boats, cars, houses, hell I had a 7 bedroom, 3 bathroom on 2 acres at a very good fishing lake, four wheelers, motorcycles and all new furniture with all of the trimmings. Still didn't make me happy. It's just stuff. Doesn't matter to me if I drive a brand new suburban or an old pickup truck as long as it's reliable and gets me where I want to go.

Same with houses, apts, etc. As long as it keeps me warm or cool, dry and comfortable I don't care if it's a penthouse or a cheap motel room. Stuff doesn't have any meaning for me as long as it does the job I need it to do.

So how do you get to be happy? I really wish someone would answer that for me with something that works. I'd really like to know how to be happy and have weeks or months that are happy. Is happiness something you can learn, is it an absence of bad feelings. Just what is happiness? Someone explain it to me, please.