Happiness is excitement

I'm currently reading The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, which has been a truly eye-opening read thus far (I'm halfway through). His brief analysis of the word happiness (on page 51 if you must know) includes this passage:

Bear with me. What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness. Crying out of happiness is a perfect illustration of this. The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is -- here's the clincher -- boredom.

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest that you follow your "passion" or your "bliss", I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement.

This makes perfect sense. I never feel unhappy when I'm doing something exciting (shocking, right?). The only time it ever hits me is those moments when I'm at a loss for what to do with my time, and I feel like I should be using it more valuably.

Lately in my life, I've had so few moments of boredom, that I confuse them with sadness.

This would certainly help define why some people are generally happy...because they are doing something that excites them! It could even be a "job". They could be "working" 80 hours a week. But if it truly excites them, they'll be happy.

So let's not mislabel boredom as sadness. Although, not everyone realizes what truly excites them...