Recipe for a good life
What are the basic ingredients for a good life, what things are not actually required and how to filter, measure, prioritize and act on them
I personally believe the goal of the everyday routine and buildup should never be to make you happy, because it never will directly. Instead it should be about creating fertile ground for being happy, by providing safety, stability, ability, basic human needs, etc. which then in turn, enables you to be happy, makes it easier for you to be happy.
Safety - the knowledge you are not in immediate danger and that you can fail here and there and everything will be alright
Stability - things are constant, you can get used to them, you don't have to constantly adapt and always be on the run. You can predict and expect things generally
Ability - how much ability you have to do things you want and push the world. This often means money, skill, influence.
Basic needs - food, sunlight, movement, human connection, etc
Your job, as the steward of your life, is to build an environment where those things are met as a default, where the environment itself leans towards them, helps you provide them to yourself and of course, your job is to invest energy into making them happen directly.
Things that strongly influence those are: relationships, work, hobbies, diet, habits, health (mental and physical), skills and knowledge, etc.