I am turning into my mother.

As a child, my toes would curl and I’d want to shrink into the upholstery whenever she’d strike up conversations and start swapping life histories with total strangers: fellow airline passengers, shop assistants, waiters …

Now I find myself doing the same. It seems the world is full of interesting people, all with stories to tell. And they’re only a stranger until you’ve met them.

Most recently it was cabby on my summer holidays in Weymouth, England. “Happiness,” he said, “happiness and health are what you need. It doesn’t even matter if you’re broke. Sure, money can ease things, but people with a lot of money just have a different set of troubles.”

He shared that a few years prior, he’d been held at gunpoint, late at night, by a desperate junkie. He had a choice to fight, or hand over his earnings and his car. He said his priorities became very clear with that shaking semi-automatic in his face: his wife of twenty-something years and his three girls. The rest he could just walk away from.

He couldn’t work for nearly a year after the incident, his nerve shot, even if he wasn’t. It was a real struggle, he confided, but his family stood by him and he describes them as stronger for it. In the end, he says, he’s almost grateful for the opportunity to have re-evaluated what’s important and to cherish that, whatever comes his way.

If you could only have just one thing, Money or Happiness, what would you choose? How about either Success or Happiness? If you had to pick between either Attractiveness or Happiness?

In theory, most of us would choose Happiness, but does that play out in our lives? What are we picking on the whole? Do we even know what happiness is?

These are the questions of Dr Robert Holden, founder of The Happiness Project and author of Be Happy (Hay House, 2009) and other titles on the subject. I have written about him before as I am intrigued by his inquiry into the nature of happiness.

How many of my clients, when I ask them what they are ultimately looking for, will say, “to be happy”. I say the same. But how many of us have taken the time to define what that really is. I assumed I had. I had a notion in my head at least, some associated images perhaps, but had never nailed down a concrete answer. However using Dr Holden’s questionnaire from The Happiness Project, I have discovered some surprising truths about what my version of happiness is.

I found that even the inquiry itself was a challenge. There I was, tears streaming down my cheeks as I wrote (probably not best to have chosen to do this an airplane!). Not tears of sadness, but perhaps relief, in recognising and reconnecting with what’s important to me. I invite, if not urge you, to answer these questions for yourself. I share some of my responses in hope it might spark or springboard a conversation, a conversation about what it really is we’re really after.

What is your definition of Happiness?

I found this hard to put into words. My only way into answering was to think of examples of when I’ve felt happy and work backwards. One vivid memory dates back a few years. It wasn’t any grand event, just a moment. Sitting in the kitchen, having breakfast: my best friend, my son, myself. I looked up from my lovely meal, the sunlight streaming in bright and warm, and what I was filled with, was love. These two people across the table, so important in my world, smiling, engaged, all of us connected. I felt surrounded by this good feeling and so full of gratitude for the privilege of that moment, it welled up inside like I might burst with the emotion. It was contentment, but not in a passive way. I felt alive and present: joy is dynamic.

Other ‘happy’ memories connect me to the great pleasure I take in sharing with others, of connection, listening deeply, feeling of service, recognising the beauty of the world, doing something creative or physical and being fully immersed in the process, not caught up in outcomes or judgment.

It seems that my definition of happiness is not a ‘one-liner’. I’ve no tagline yet to encompass the real magnitude of this emotion. This is a start, a work in progress. And why not let it be something I keep adding to and refining as I continue pay more attention to these important moments? So far it includes something of the following:

Having the people I love as priority, ensuring they know how much I cherish them and their impact on my life. Trusting, sharing, laughing, creating and giving of myself to make a positive contribution to the world, one small, conscious act at a time. Being present to the wonder in each moment and celebrating my utter gratitude for being alive in it.

This all sounds like heady stuff, like slogans from a touchy-feely e-mail circular or the self-help section, but maybe there’s a reason they’re like that. Yet I’m also aware it can happen in an instant over breakfast. It seems the ‘being’ of it is much simpler than the explaining.

How well are you living your definition of Happiness?

Me? Not so well, I’ve realised.

I spend lot of my time feeling stressed out, not filled with love for others. Too often I am running late, feeling lacking, stuck in my head and not in the moment. Decisions feel serious and weighty. I obsess, comparing myself with others, wanting to get it ‘right’: what I do/how I mother/socially/the list goes on. Feeling resentful, overwhelmed, second rate, inadequate, struggling … doesn’t leave much room for happiness. And that’s what comes from focusing on what’s missing, rather than what we already have.

So I learn that happiness also relies on focus and intention … what else?

I could have just listened to my taxi-driver and taken his word for it all.

But the empowerment is in clueing into it ourselves (otherwise we’d just read those e-mail circulars and all be over the moon). It is worth puzzling, this thing that often feels so elusive yet we can recognise its ever-present potential: something we all want, but don’t always allow ourselves to be.

And this is just the start of the conversation. Next week I’ll share more from Dr Holden’s Happiness Interview and invite you to answer the rest of the questionnaire for yourself.

When Pharrell sings, “Clap along if you know what happiness is to you” … Let’s!

Julia Pitt is a trained Success Coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on (441) 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.