There is no specific measuring scale. For a child, a toy brings immense happiness, a surprising kiss from her child does the magic for a mother, and excelling grade will do for a father, a hug for a lone neighbor, a winning score for a frenetic fan, a spring morning or smell of wet sand for a jogger. Different things bring happiness to different people. But, most of these are ephemeral.
There are also lots of tests and quizzes that measure happiness. But, most of them stop with the point of measuring. They neither help nor provide feedbacks to improve your state of mind. Lots of tests and quizzes are general and evaluate your choices based on multiple choice questions which range from mundane activities to question on your future plans like '25 years from now'. But, these quizzes don't help much as the result you get most of the time will be 'moderately happy'. Do you think spending 5-10 minutes taking these quizzes is going to help you find whether you are happy or not?
No, in a broader sense they won't. There is no better judge than yourself, there is no better questionnaire than your own and there is no better time than your everyday.
The best tool to analyze your happiness quotient or measure your happiness is self- analysis. This will take a long time as against the readily available 5-10 minutes quizzes. But, by end of the test you will have an idea as to what is the level of your happiness, are you really unhappy? Or most if it is a perception that you have instilled in your mind.
Personal happiness measurement
This self analysis test measures your happiness in a traditional way by taking manual notes. It is said that when you have to make a choice between important things, you should write down the pros and cons of both your choices and weigh them. Similarly, you should make a note of your emotions and how you felt about every activities and incidents of the day including your mundane activities in a note book for a week or two. Write it down as and when you go through the emotion. This way you will not leave out things and at the same time, write exactly what you felt.
This test will help you differentiate things that make you happy and things that make you unhappy every day. At end of the everyday, sit down and go through the motions and emotions you went through. By the end of the week you should be able to set a pattern of things or incidents or actions that had a bad impact on your mood. Similarly you should also be able to tell apart the ones that calmed you or made you happy. Try and eliminate those unhappy things or incidents if you could.
If the unhappy things that happen are unavoidable, change the work plan so that the happy action comes right behind the bad one. For example, you meet a fellow neighbor who is nosey in the laundry room everyday and even small talk seem to irritate you, try to change your laundry time. If it is not possible, do something that makes you happy immediately after you come back from laundering. Let's say, a cup of strong coffee freshens your mood and calms you down, let the coffee brew when you do your laundry. You can also have something to look forward to while doing the laundry.
One of the challenges of this test is the judgment of distinction between 'what you felt' and 'what you thought you felt'. There is a thin line of difference between these two things but, when jotted down wrongly will not help the self evaluation. For example you might have a deadline to meet in your work. You boss calls you and reminds you. Immediately you become concerned or upset or tensed. You can pin down two reasons for this. 1. Your boss's call. 2. You have a deadline to finish and you are nowhere near it. The immediate conclusion your mind comes to is your boss's call. This is what you thought got you tensed. But, the real reason is the work pressure that tensed you. So end of each day before you sleep check the list and give a minutes thought and try to differentiate this and write it down. In case, you are not able to tell apart, note both the points, in a day or two you will be able to conclude the reason after the issue is solved or when the incidents reoccurs you will give more attention the second time to differentiate.
'The nosey laundry neighbor' example quoted is a very simple, but even bigger problem can be changed and adjusted to suit your mood. This requires understanding and constant need in your mind to stay happy. If you are someone who is bent upon finding solutions to your problems or fixing them so that you stay calm, relaxed and happy this test done once in a while when you feel down should suffice.
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