How to be Happy 
http://whychinaishopeless.org/2010/05/how-to-be-happy/
It is probably the most important question one can ever ask. Strangely enough, articles on this topic I can find online are way too shallow. They say to be happy you shall make enough money, stay close with family and friends, maintain good health, live in certain areas, etc. I bet a lot of folks achieve all those things and are still not happy. And folks who are truly happy might not achieve happiness by setting goals on those things. Besides, none of the articles show the reasoning or methodology behind their conclusions anyway. I think it's not hard to do better than that.

The scientific method to find out how to be happy is to gather as many happy people as possible and look for what they have in common. The pitfall of this method is that it's difficult to tell whether a person is genuinely happy. First, you can't rely on what they say since many people get used to pretend to be happy. I think the reason of such disguise is the social pressure on being happy, at least appear to be. Happy people tend to be more popular. And in many circumstances, unhappiness means failure. A man can't just let his spouse know he is not happy with her. An employee can't risk letting his boss know he is not happy with his job. Second, you can't tell by appearance. A man who is having beer and laughing with his friends may not be truly happy. Or the happiness may be short lived, going away right after the party. A man who is working and looks worried may be happy in the heart. And the happiness may be long lasting after the work is done. Simply put, only oneself can tell whether he is happy, making the scientific method on how to achieve happiness rough from the start.

The second best method is observation, by which human use to figure out things that can't conduct experiment on, such as in history and economics. We can observe what people usually do to make themselves happy (successfully or not) and try figuring out the pattern.

In general, a person is happy when his need is satisfied. So the question of how to be happy translates into how to satisfy needs. So what do we know about needs? Maslow's hierarchy of needs is well known, but I think it makes simple things complicated, which is usually a sign for bad ideas. Instead, I classify needs into only two kinds, the basic ones and the advanced ones. Basic needs are about safety and survival. We share those basic needs with other animals. On the other hand, advanced needs are unique to human. The amazing thing is that the ways to satisfy two kinds of needs are fundamentally different. Basic needs are simple. If you are hungry, you want to eat. When you finish eating, you are happy. I don't have much to say about that. In contrary, advanced needs have great variety and many of them are vague. Lucky me, I discover a clear pattern in satisfying advanced needs. I call it stress-relief cycle (SRC). I would explain the idea by illustrating examples in some of the most important aspects of human life.

Sex

Sex is one thing that makes almost anyone happy. But why? Some may say that is coded in our DNA. But that explanation leads to nowhere. Instead, we can examine the process of making love, closely. Good sex requires your full attention. You concentrate on the movements of your fingers and lips. You are absorbed. The only thing in your head is to make your partner satisfied, so that you can be satisfied. As you insert and eject your penis, you are getting tired, the stress is building up, but you hold your position no matter what, observing the reaction of your partner. When you feel she is there, you ejaculate, releasing all the stress while the happiest moment comes. You see the stress and relief cycle here, right?

In fact, you can see SRC in lots of things that make people happy. In some of them the pattern is self-evident, like playing video games and doing sports. In some it's less obvious. For example, where is the stress-relief cycle in partying with friends? It's supposed to be just for relax. Exactly. You are happy when partying because you are releasing your stress from previous activities, like study and work. Party is the relief segment in a complete SRC. If you don't build up stress in weekdays and have little stress to release, you would find much less content from a weekend party.

Work

Why one has to work? Some may say the primary reason is to make a living. In other words, to satisfy basic needs. I agree with that, partly. But you can't ignore the fact that lots of folks work anyway even they have no need to make a living anymore. What drives them? What's the need beyond basic needs? My personal experience is that I can't stay happy for long (like days) while doing nothing. And I guess that's the case for everyone. Simply put, work makes one happy.

Work makes one happy because work builds up stress, which one can release later, completing a SRC. So that certain level of happiness is guaranteed. Without work, one has no stress to release, thus can't be happy. An interesting fact supporting my theory is that the arrangements of workday and holidays are astoundingly similar in otherwise very different cultures. Throughout history, every culture I know about has official rest days and holidays. People build up stress in daytime of weekdays, release a little on every weekday night, release more on weekends, and release completely in holiday season. I don't think any single wise man is responsible for making such arrangement out of thin air. Like all other traditions, society as a whole gradually adopts the idea, because it's tested feasible and beneficial for majority of people as time goes by.

But wait a minute, lots of guys don't think their work make them happy. According to SRC, they build up stress at work and release it at off time. They should be happy. Is the theory wrong? I don't think so. We just need to refine it. Here is some common sense. If stress is too high, one may need more off time or better ways to release it. If one has daily stress surplus which accumulates over time, he can hardly release them completely and always feel stressful. Conversely, if one has daily relief surplus, he may probably feel bored and underachieved. Simply put, the disparity between levels of stress and relief makes one unhappy. Further, we can even quantify the level of stress and relief.

Relations

Interacting with people may not always be pleasant. But being alone for sufficient long time guarantees unhappiness. Part of the need for interpersonal relations belongs to basic needs. Because we need to be around other people to feel safe just like any other social animals. But most part of relation need is unique to human. Animals don't flatter their bosses, flirt with ladies, manipulate their opponents. Look closely to many kinds of human interactions, you can spot stress-release cycles. Take flirting as example. When you try to attract a girl, you feel certain level of suspense, which is how much the girl likes you and how the relationship is going to develop. The suspense for outcome is indeed a type of stress. When you get her phone number, the stress is released, making you happy. In fact, the nature of interpersonal interaction is constantly creating suspense (stress) and seeing the feedback (release).

Some may argue suspense may not be an indispensable part in relations. For example, there seems to be no room for suspense when you are with your families or best friends because you know each other too well. But what I learn from experience is that I feel nice to sit down with my parents and talk for a while. Because it helps provide a sense of safety (a basic need). But I get bored very quickly if we don't do something interesting. The boredom is induced by the lack of suspense and the subsequent release.

Moral of SRC

Since we have discovered the nature of happiness, we can use it to our advantage. We can enhance happiness or reduce unhappiness by creating better SRCs, provided that basic needs are no longer a problem.

Procrastination

Procrastination is a problem for many, if not all, people. The nature of procrastination is the fear of failure. The absolute solution to avoid any possibility of failure is to sit tight and do nothing. Funny enough, doing nothing also creates stress, which we call worry under that context. Procrastination make people unhappy because the worry caused by it can't be released if one keeps procrastinating. It's like doing a stressful task with no outcome and no feedback whatsoever. So that worry is building up and up, driving one bored and depressed. The moral here is that you should create the kind of stress that you can release. By release, I mean you can see the result or get feedbacks.

Free Will

To be happy one should have the right to decide what SRC to take. More specifically, one should have the power to choose what work to do to build up stress and what leisure activities to take to release it. Many folks don't feel happy because they are forced to do tasks they are not interested in, and have limited options while spending their leisure time.

One Sentence Conclusion

To be happy, you'd better seek the stress you are willing to take, proactively.