Others have said most of it well.
I'll just add -
I'm learning that in a lot of cases my feelings of 'happiness' or 'unhappiness' is a matter of expectations and fulfillment. I don't believe the point of life is to be 'happy' all the time. For me, it's about something more and different. It's about fulfillment and self-actualization.
In fact, a lot of things worth doing in my life have required me to be 'unhappy' at times. But they were still worth doing.
I know I may seem to be splitting hairs here, but I do think it's important. I have grown quite wary of chasing altruistic 'unicorn and rainbow' concepts that are almost completely abstract and not somehow related to something I can work toward or easily point to and identify. Something concrete.
In fact, chasing cliche's is has something to do with my own issues with booze. A huge part of my sobriety so far has been staying real with things. I find when I drift I get very deeply dissatisfied.
Allll that said... it's also about addition by subtraction. Overall I
am happier simply because I'm not destroying some aspect of my life on a routine basis. Though that doesn't always translate to me skipping around with cartoon birds sitting on my shoulder.
B
PS - Consider this sort of analogy - I've eaten candy. It made me happy. But it also led to a cavity, which hurt. I've been to a dentist. He hurt me. But I felt a lot better after.
Happiness is like a lot of things, it's relative and it also depends on what we do and finding the balance between gratification in the moment and what we're willing to work for and work through....