I once heard an interview on NPR  which recurs to me from time to time, especially if I am confused.  This is a sure sign that an image contains an important truth. The interview, at least as I remember it, starts out with a reporter introducing a musician who had just returned from Tibet.  The musician had been studying the art of simultaneously chanting multiple tones.  The reporter asked the musician, "Did you have a good time in Tibet?".  The musician replied, "Its not about having a good time, its about knowing what kind of time you are having."

How true this is.  We can seek pleasure in its superficial forms, but the happiness we find is transitory and must be sustained by constant stimulation from outside ourselves.  But, when we let go of this quest for pleasure and allow ourselves to mindfully accept our feelings, whether we are in a good mood or foul, there is in our self acceptance a unification, a psychological homecoming, that is a joyous and serene happiness, much more powerful than the pleasures which were forsaken.  Such is the paradoxical nature of true happiness.