Happiness as part of the journey

Some time ago I asked a friend, who had had quite a lot of upheaval in her life, if she was happy. I think I was thinking fairly concretely as in, happy in your new situation. And she did reply. She said, "I guess so. It's really difficult to answer. I mean are you HAPPY? or just living life where God or circumstance have put you (so to say)?...there may be peace , there may not be actual happiness...". 

She then went on to say " I look around me at friends of my age and ask are they HAPPY?" Finally, she said "Happiness is a different concept when one is old than when one is young I think. Often blocks to happiness come from within oneself and in that regard I think/feel I am not living my [life] to the fullest that I am capable of."

I found her answers thought-provoking. But also, her question: "Are you HAPPY?" made me ponder. Some of the upheavals in my life would put this question to the test I think but here was my answer.

Yes, I am happy. But it isn't because I am here or not there for instance. That is to say, my happiness is not situational; it isn't dependent upon where I am or who I am with except at a fairly superficial level. I am genuinely happy because I feel that my life , however difficult it has been, has been blessed and held and I am filled with gratitude. And I believe that gratitude is at the bottom of all happiness. 

I have always felt too, that I am free - not in the sense of not having obligations, or of being able to do what I want - but free to choose. Even when I have been in situations where someone else has made decisions that profoundly and perhaps adversely, affected my life, I have felt free to choose to accept these or not. I can always reject what I do not positively choose. So in the end, I have a kind of control because I choose what I can and will do in given situations. If that is so, then I cannot, for instance, be a victim.

Obviously, there are times when the choices facing anyone are decisions between bad and worse but even then, I can choose to accept that that is as it is and get on with it, working all the time towards more positive change. I wonder if this sounds simplistic but if it does, I can't think of anything else that can account for my happiness. It has taken a very long time though.