How to be Happy

I once attended a talk with Bruce Poon Tip. One of his little tidbits really resonated with me. He highlighted that to be happy (in the broadest, comprehensive, life-enabling, sense), there needs to be four criteria that need to be met.

1. Perception of progress - we need to be in motion. In a more specific case we need to make sure we are progressing in terms of career, learning, spirituality, etc. That's not to say there needs to be material improvement, or that it needs to be affirmed through a third party; put simply our own active monitoring of our state of motion is enough.
2. Connectedness - we are social creatures at the end of the day. Bluntly speaking, no matter how much we want to deny it, being reaffirmed by your peers, whether it is a few tight connections, or many loose ones, feeds into that fragile ego of ours.
3. Perceived control - we want to be in control of our awareness and our destiny. This is the missing element that people in a state of despair, apathy, and/or nihilism don't have.
4. Feeling something larger than yourself - this is not necessary related to spirituality or God. People want to feel that the first three elements will translate into transcendence in some form of the other. Perhaps this need arises in order to reconcile the dissonance between the ephemeral nature of our physical state and our insatiable desire for eternal relevance.

This is rather a complete list. I believe I am making good progress on all fronts.