What is happiness?

I heard an interview on happiness this morning.  He said there are four elements of happiness:  faith, family, friends/community, and work. He said women do a better job with cultivating and maintaining friendships than men--that 60% of men will say their wife is their best friend, and that's unfortunate (only 30% of women say husband is a best friend). The happiest people are conservative women; unhappiest are liberal men.

He said it is a myth that depression and unhappiness stalk us at Christmas--that is actually the happiest time for most people; the months of greatest depression are May-July (I think that's when women try on swim suits, but he didn't really give that as evidence--that's my own thinking). People are not happier when they are given things (like welfare) or win the lottery because work provides the satisfaction that leads to happiness.

It was the Bill Bennett show and I think he was interviewing Albert Brooks who recently had an article in the NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/a-formula-for-happiness.html?_r=1&

"Free enterprise gives the most people the best shot at earning their success and finding enduring happiness in their work. It creates more paths than any other system to use one’s abilities in creative and meaningful ways, from entrepreneurship to teaching to ministry to playing the French horn. This is hardly mere materialism, and it is much more than an economic alternative. Free enterprise is a moral imperative."