I have known people in my life who were clearly not happy. But if you asked them, they absolutely would have said they were happy.

I bet if you polled North Koreans with a question like “are you happy”, many would answer in the affirmative because they don’t know any better and they don’t have visibility of alternate lifestyles. Yet, malnourishment and poverty, lack of individual freedoms and choices, a social cast system, etc would not be considered components of happiness to the rest of the world.

There are also other variables that can influence this. Many people live in poverty, have poor health, don’t enjoy their jobs, have poor relationships with others, etc., but they might point to their religion or relationship with God as a reason they are happy.

When you look at Hawaii and see you high happiness scores that translate to actual things like life expectancy, I think that has meaning.

In the end, I think they are doing the best they can do with objective measures that have actually been studied.