Is happiness real?

I googled this question which produced 74,800,000 webpages. Why are so many people searching for happiness? I don't really know. Yet, happiness is a big business, filled with self -help books, material goods and plastic surgery. All meant to fill some void left by the absence of the illusive happiness. In fact, the University of Michigan conducts the World Values Surveys in which they determine the subjective well being of a particular nation. The countries with the happiest people are as follows 1. Nigeria 2. Mexico 3. Venezuela 4. El Salvador 5. Puerto Rico. Results for subjective well being were slightly different, and placed Puerto Rico in the number one spot. My home country the US was number 15.
So, why the obsession? Perhaps it is as simple as definition and language. Why does happiness have to be pursued or found? I don't think our ancestors were occupied with finding happiness. 10,000 years ago they were too busy trying to survive. Words and word usage are powerful. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis shows that words hold meaning. A simple concept we all know. Yet, this hypothesis made by an insurance salesmen informs us that we are times, mindless to a meaning's consequence. For example, men working with empty gas barrels thought it was safe to smoke near these empty barrels. Unfortunately, the word empty made them feel safe, when in fact the barrels were only empty of gasoline and not gas fumes. The complacency caused by the word empty lead to a horrible fire.
The word happy is also used in a misleading way, this I realized after reading Deepak Chopra's book on the life of Buddha. Buddha believed that this world was illusory. Meaning that nothing in it is real. People run from pain and seek pleasure making the illusion. Enlightenment was obtained by this realization and reveling in nothingness. Nothingness! How can nothingness be great; is it not like death? Like a deep sleep where you don't remember your dreams.
Let me back track for a moment. In my early teens I was diagnosed with depression. I wanted desperately to be happy. It was my only goal in life and if I didn't achieve it by some arbitrary date, in some arbitrary way, then all that was left may be death. Slowly, I learned to empty my mind of thoughts of the future. I didn't live in the moment, I just made my inner thoughts shut up. The only way to become someone that I could live with was to move forward. If it was easy enough and socially agreeable( thereby giving me status), I did it. That somehow meant dropping out of high school and going straight to college. All of a sudden I wasn't happy, but I was okay. I could live like this. I even enjoyed what I was doing. Now, that I look back I was happy, I am happy.
Here is where Buddha stops and language comes into play again. Happiness is a word attached to other feelings. This is the exact reason why people don't think they are happy. And, they are probably not, because they are tickled by something, content, satisfied, or in awe among other things. Happiness is not something to achieve. It is a state of being. Perhaps the natural human state(back to Buddha). This is enlightening.