Happiness, thats a difficult one. If you came to me looking for answers, you're in the wrong place. All I can do is offer you more questions. Maybe, just maybe... these questions can help you find out what that word called happiness means to you.
One things for certain, instant gratification isn't happiness. It is, however, something a lot of us have gotten mixed up in. Instant gratification is when you get happy cause something is fun to do or when something feels good. Its a little hard to describe in words, but what that means is something active makes you feel happy. It can come from most anywhere, but its the kind of happiness that requires something else. Think about times when you've considered yourself happy. What were you doing? Playing a video game? Making out with a person you're attracted to? Drinking a beer while watching the television? Whatever it is, if it required an action even as simple as looking in the mirror to yourself, naked ofcourse, and thinking "damn I wanna fuck myself" thats not true happiness.
Happiness is being content and satisfied with oneself when nothing is happening. You ever get bored? What do you think about when you're bored? Do you wish you could be doing something? Would you rather be with someone? Are you with another person or persons and still are bored? Do you really think that that is happiness? True happiness can be never being bored again, or concerned about wasting time. How can you waste time if it makes you happy? Now I don't want this used as a defense for instant gratification or hollow happiness. Doodling on a piece of paper is wasting time. Something could possibly come out of it, and I could list a bunch of far-fetched ideas, but thats not the point. You should know what I mean, even if you haven't read the essay on wasting time. Happiness isn't found in a single accomplishment either, because what happens if that accomplishment is taken away from you? What then? Even if you've accomplished a hundred things, if they're all taken away from you, how do you deal with it? Do you cling to whatever you have left, as great or as little as it may be its something? Or do you find that, even if you lose what you've done with you're life, you're still happy. You realize that happiness is not found without but within you. Even if you have nothing, you know you've done what you've done and you'll continue to do what you do. You may not have always tried your hardest, or ever have been the best, but you tried, and as long as you live you will continue trying. That is happiness, not concerned with previous attempts or their results, but an inner glow that gives you warmth in the cold. It may sound vague now, and full of non-sensical metaphor, but perhaps one day we will all understand what it means to be happy. That's something we can all hope for