Real Happiness?

As with anything, I always get some kind of inspiration to write from a simple word someone may say, a song that comes up on my playlist and reminds me of a certain time in my life, a smell that brings along a feeling and then an idea... Today's thoughts came from a friend wondering whether she would ever be happy. I suppose that is a human being's eternal question...
When I was in my early 20's that's all I looked for. Some kind of eternal, all-encompassing happiness that would make my life worth living. I had no idea where this happiness would be (probably assumed that I would immediately be happy once I found the "love of my life"). I would appreciate the moments of happiness, joy, contentment that i felt along the way, but it was never enough, I was always looking for something more. How depressing when I think about it now... Running through life desperately searching for something that didn't exist, or at least didn't (doesn't?) exist in the form that I was imagining it to be.

And then comes the awareness that you are not going to find it. In my experience this wasn't a sudden, life-changing realisation, not like the ones I had experienced earlier on in life (realising I really never would see my father again, realising this world would never experience Peace etc). It was more like a gradual acceptance that this WAS life, and that happiness was not something with a capital "H", but it was a feeling, just like sadness is.

Nowadays I just look for all those moments of happiness as much as possible: chatting with friends over coffee, listening to a great song, writing something GOOD, taking an amazing picture, walking in the Autumn sun listening to music, reading a great book etc etc etc.

Or am I just all wrong? Am I just settling because I am too tired to keep searching anymore?