Thesaurus entry; happiness

Happiness is a lovely rest stop and a lovely
emotion, but it’s not the only emotion you
need. Each of your emotions has a specific
purpose and a specific place in your life.
One of the biggest tricks to learn with
happiness is to let it come and go — and to
not treat it as better or more important than
your other emotions. Every emotion has its
place.
If you treat happiness as your go-to emotion,
you’ll suffer unnecessarily when your other
emotions arise. You need anger, fear,
sadness, jealousy, envy, guilt, grief, shame,
and even depression (etc.) at times. If all you
know and all you want is happiness, you’ll
tend to avoid, ignore, suppress, or mistreat
your other emotions, and then guess what?
You won’t be happy very often.
What I notice in working appropriately with
the supposedly “negative” emotions is that
when we work with them skillfully, we often
feel happy, contented, or pleased afterward.
It is as if happiness arises to tell us, “Good
job! You’re getting the hang of emotions
now, aren’t you?”
I separate happiness into three
categories: Happiness, Contentment, and Joy.
In this list, we’ll look at them all together,
just as we did with Anger and Fear.

Soft Happiness
Smiling ~ Upbeat ~ Peaceful ~ Calm ~
Amused ~ Open ~ Friendly ~ Encouraged
~ Hopeful ~ Inspired ~ Jovial

Mood State Happiness
Happy ~ Glad ~ Content ~ Optimistic ~
Cheerful ~ Joyful ~ Satisfied ~ Lively ~
Delighted ~ Rejuvenated ~ Pleased ~
Gratified ~ Excited ~ Gleeful ~ Merry ~
Playful

Intense Happiness
Elated ~ Exhilarated ~ Manic ~ Giddy ~
Euphoric ~ Awe-filled ~ Blissful ~
Enthralled ~ Rapturous ~ Jubilant ~
Ecstatic ~ Overjoyed ~ Radiant
In the area of intense happiness, I included
mania to remind us that there can be
difficulty in the area of happiness. Intense
euphoric experiences are excellent and
fleeting, and they can change your entire
outlook on life. However, they tend not to
mesh well with activities that lead to your
everyday happiness and security, such as
attending to your relationships, working
toward difficult goals, and paying the bills.
Intense euphoric happiness is excellent in its
place, but part of its beauty is that it is (or
should be) comparatively rare.