happiness and where to look for it

for romania's national day and the bday of one of my sisters-in-law , my family gathered. lots of noise, happiness (or maybe wanna-be feeling of happiness: we always think we should be happy if we are together, if we rationally decide it is a moment for being happy)food and ... searching :D coming back home to my eldest's brother house, i started thinking about me in 10 years. where will i be, what will i be doing, how will i be happy? i tried to understand if i see my life at least a bit similar to his. i realised the answer is rather negative, so again, i started asking why...why different? we come from the same family, we have more or less the same values etc, maybe the only thing that aparts us is the educational opportunities and the times we lived. so, are these two aspects so important that can produce two different lifestyles? i guess this question will find an answer in 12 years, when i'll be the age of my brother but anyways, coming back to happiness, because we all want to create that kind of life that makes us happy, many times we try to create contexts that we think can lead us to feeling good, feeling happy. we are deeply dissappointed when we find out this feeling doesn't appear, so we try again to look for happiness somewhere else, as, of course, it's always because of something that we're not happy...but what if we think of what exactly makes us happy when we experience the feeling? is it the new curtain? the great hotel room or the trip to lapland? or is it the enthusiasm, the intrinsic value of us being happy with ourselves, with our life and decisions that makes us increase the level of our happiness? is it the environment, or the way we connect with that environment - meaning place, people, ideas? where should i look for happiness when everything is tearing apart, when u find no solution and no hope? my answer? in myself and in my power to smile even though i'm in a way forcing myself to do it. and why is that smile authentic? because it comes from my justified wish to create a smiling network, a chain-reaction based on sincerity - an impulse to smile when someone else smiles at you, something that you cannot explain through more than saying "i smile cause he smiled". what is there more authentic than this relation? i guess i define this giving-back moment as the greatest one of authentic happiness and even though i'm tired and my back hurts, i send a huge smile to all those of you who are there to reach it