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"Psychological researchers have, for years, distinguished between “life satisfaction,” or the overall assessment of your feelings and attitudes about your life at a particular point in time, from “subjective well-being,” which captures the actual feelings of happiness you have at the moment. The aptly-labeled phrase paradox of well-being describes a puzzling finding, long known about in the field of psychology and aging that older people express higher levels of subjective well-being despite the fact that, objectively, their life circumstances are less positive than are those of younger but often, unhappier, people." http://tinyurl.com/jurgmsd
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When I searched Google about "the meaning of happiness," there were 51,300,000 hits. Individual and cultural differences abound. I would rather be more content with life than less. Pursuing my core values would help me be more content. One core value is to leave the world a bit better than I found it.
Death for me is no barrier to striving to live a life imbued with core values. Theists in particular have a vested interest in the afterlife.
Thanks to the OP for the complexity of the post.