Comment Re:Objectively Guage Your Happiness (Score 1) 312
You might want to go back to grade four, when they taught you (or ought to have) about root words.
You'll find that the root word of happy is shared by happen, happenstance, happening, and haptic. You'll find that to be happy is to be happy with what is happening. Being happy is being satisfied with your current happenstance. It has nothing to do with joy.
You may also want to go back to psych 101, where they taught you (or ought to have) about emotional indices. You'll find that joy is the emotion, and happiness is not.
You may also want to go back to that Latin course you took, or ought to have. You'll find that "joy, joyful" exists, but "happy, happyful" does not. When words are conjugated differently, they are almost always different parts of speech. Happy is an adjective. Joy is a noun. You experience joy. You don't experience happy. You experience happiness.
You can make up your own definitions for words, or you can use the meanings that the general public tends to use. Each is incorrect. Alternatively, you can actually use the meaning of the word, as it is almost always a simple definition from another language. If you do that, not only do things make sense, but foreigners will be capable of learning your language.
late 14c., "lucky, favored by fortune, prosperous;" of events, "turning out well," from hap (n.) "chance, fortune",
"lucky."