Happiness or well-being?

I was seeking happiness with such fervor that there was hardly any space left for it to emerge... Even in my meditation practice... I knew with my thoughts (mind) that happiness is fleeting and you can't rely on anything in your external reality to provide it in a stable and predictable way. But deep down this was still what I was doing: I was seeking something, some state. (In the last years, more than just a state, I was back into an intense quest for gross external indicators of happiness....) When in fact – duh! - this well-being is always there, available, as an inner state – it's like an absence of unhappiness (when one is not fighting what is at this moment) - not necessarily presence of “happiness” - why this need to be HAPPY all the time? (Total cultural dictate...) But just this deep peaceful sense of well-being, that can emerge as long as one doesn't struggle to find HAPPYness (or escape UNHAPPIness)... The other day I got an ayurvedic massage (soooo nice!) and at one point this strong sadness came up, and I started my habitual thing of trying to think it away, run away from it in my mind, feel better by observing it objectively... when suddenly a voice inside me said “YES” to it and the sadness went through and filled my whole body, it felt like it was in all my cells in the end, and then it just let go. The sadness had been almost delicious, because something in me had let it express itself totally, as what it was. I wouldn't call myself “happy” at that “YES” moment, but there was more peace and well-being than I've had in a long time