Happiness...?

I was having a conversation with someone about my beliefs on life and spirituality and the question of what I look forward to came up and more precisely what my doctrines are for life and of course my belief particularly on faith. So my answer which has always been my answer for quite a number of years was that I believe in living life for the sole purpose of obtaining happiness, quite a vital principle of the Buddhist philosophy, or atleast that of the Dalai Lama and his teachings on Tibetan Buddhism. But that answer wasn't very clear and I guess it is a bit vague in what exactly is happiness, and it seems like it's really not a very fulfilling goal. So I'm going to try to express what I mean by happiness in writing and perhaps it may help me better articulate it through speech. Ok, well when you speak to a lot of individuals about their faith and beliefs they always say that at the end of their life they hope to have accomplished things and if they have done anything that may have harmed another person or thing that they have atoned for their sins. But living a life where the ultimate goal is achieving some sort of gift or praise seems to me like you are only following rules but not living. Living should be about learning and growing and understanding. And that's this idea of happiness, and to me happiness means that I've learned all that I've had the capability to learn, that I've not led a life where I've interfered too greatly, in a negative sense, with the life of another individual, that I've grown far greater not in a physical sense but in a mental sense, and that I've tried to understand what I've lived and how others have lived to be more cognizant of why certain people are and perhaps learn how to understand them. I also believe that happiness implies that you take away this idea of hope, we as humans are hoping that one day our time will come when all our life will have meaning, but I think that's more of a selfish attitude, and though it may be fulfilling to have hope, it's a very narrow minded goal which for some reason there is a unforeseen event we may loose our hope. Now perhaps if we see all events as having a purpose then that has far greater meaning then being in the mindset of the hope for a change and ultimately having grown from the past. I also think that we all try to, as a friend of mine once said, "sell our selves", in many ways through life, that we are our own ultimate salesmen, we want to look good on a date, we want to make a good impression when we meed someone, we carry out a formality when confronting, but the Dalai Lama said that he is one that does not believe in formality but rather in the idea of connection, when you take formality too seriously you don't make the connection which is just communication with another individual. And by being formal we sell our politeness. Now I'm not saying walk up to someone naked but rather the focus should be more on communication rather then the act of following a proper rules of engagement for communication, which may lead you to miss a connection. Ok, so I side tracked there a little but, so what am I getting at, well... ultimately I want to say that my goal is know that I have expressed myself and communicated to the best of my abilities without being too overt. And that I'm happy about the events of the past, or fulfilled. In a sense enlightened about what it means to live a life. Ok, it's late and I should sleep now but I will expand more on this subject later...