Happiness is not a state of mind but what's at the core of one's soul. One's true "happiness" can never change once it's set by: 1) self choice/acceptance. 2) Man up stairs . Ah crud... wrong forum!
I haven't ran into a single totally "outwardly" happy airline pilot. It's always something. It's like that youtube video of Lego pilot characters.... you know, "werk werk werk". I'll be the first to admit that I am one of them. However, I do catch myself from time to time. Lately, caffeine, exercise, and sleep seem to help with my outwardly happiness.
The fact of the matter is that the middle managers at the Alaskan familia, especially crew scheduling up through BM doesn't want the pilots to be happy. Besides pay and bennies, what get's pilots po'd the most? Scheduling and the inability to trade out of crappy trips, which are abundant. For many folks with lots of $$$ and/or power, its never enough so they have to control people to the point of misery. Oh but guess what, the optimizer is at fault and PBS will fix everything!

Good advice. Family, coffee, and flying make me happy, in that order.

Be forewarned about the optimizer though, it's referred to over here as the sodomizer. PBS can be a good thing, but the union should control the parameters, not management. At the very least control should be shared.

I live in the great PNW and get the same thing. Usually followed by, "have you considered coming to work for Alaska?" I don't know, I just can't see tossing 12 years seniority away at America to go to Alaska. Call me crazy. Now Delta, hmmmmmm, maybeeeee........... :)