Mar 6, 2026 · 39 min · 10 segments
Are you happy? Oh. Sorry. Was that too direct? It’s a simple question, but it tends to make people shift in their seats. In this episode of But Are You Happy?, Ashani Dante and clinical psychologist…
Anastasia HronisHostAshani DanteHost
Because a lot of people talk about happiness as being a feeling, an emotion, right? You know, happy, sad, angry, anxious, you know, four core emotions.
Well, you know, the researchers can't even agree on this because apparently there's debate as to whether or not happiness is actually a feeling or not.
There are schools of thought out there that suggest that happiness is not an emotion and
It's more of a state of being and it encompasses our thoughts, our feelings and our actions.
So people often talk about happiness as something that we can create in our life with intention based on how we choose to think, the actions we choose to take to cultivate happiness, but that the emotional experiences are perhaps an amalgamation of different things like joy, contentment, satisfaction, those kinds of feelings.
That's so interesting that that's they're debating that it may not actually be an emotion because it seems pretty simple that it is an emotion.
And I guess it's how it's come into our day-to-day dialogue, right? We talk about happiness as being a feeling in the same way as sadness or anxiety.
But it's interesting to kind of think of this difference of it being an emotion versus a a state of being.
And it's interesting because I feel like happiness, it's a very straightforward feeling.
Well, happiness has certainly been a key source of study, let's say, from when we think about the ancient philosophers to nowadays people studying kind of this concept of happiness.
And we can definitely look to, I find it quite interesting to look to sort of the old philosophical ways of thinking about happiness, because I guess philosophers were almost like the first psychologists.
Because a lot of people talk about happiness as being a feeling, an emotion, right? You know, happy, sad, angry, anxious, you know, four core emotions.
Well, you know, the researchers can't even agree on this because apparently there's debate as to whether or not happiness is actually a feeling or not.
There are schools of thought out there that suggest that happiness is not an emotion and
It's more of a state of being and it encompasses our thoughts, our feelings and our actions.
So people often talk about happiness as something that we can create in our life with intention based on how we choose to think, the actions we choose to take to cultivate happiness, but that the emotional experiences are perhaps an amalgamation of different things like joy, contentment, satisfaction, those kinds of feelings.
That's so interesting that that's they're debating that it may not actually be an emotion because it seems pretty simple that it is an emotion.
And I guess it's how it's come into our day-to-day dialogue, right? We talk about happiness as being a feeling in the same way as sadness or anxiety.
But it's interesting to kind of think of this difference of it being an emotion versus a a state of being.
And it's interesting because I feel like happiness, it's a very straightforward feeling.
Well, happiness has certainly been a key source of study, let's say, from when we think about the ancient philosophers to nowadays people studying kind of this concept of happiness.
And we can definitely look to, I find it quite interesting to look to sort of the old philosophical ways of thinking about happiness, because I guess philosophers were almost like the first psychologists.
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3 of 7
Why Happiness Returns To Baseline
Life changes may not permanently shift happiness
Happiness Is Not The Goal
Constant joy may miss the bigger goal
The Happiness Set Point
Some happiness differences begin before life experiences
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