There are a number of terms that are often used in place of happiness: pleasure, joy, contentment, satisfaction. These are particular types of experience which overlap with the experience of happiness but are in themselves not the state of happiness. Happiness as accumulation and consumption of goods, as a kind of product that can be sold, is endemic to modern definitions of happiness. Every event has to be a happy event: Happy Diwali, Happy Christmas, Happy Independence Day and so on. The relation between shopping and happiness is a cynical continuation of the age-old relationship between happiness and freedom.

Source: The Hindu March 23, 2017 00:39 UTC