I don't think Tom equates happiness to lack of stress, or to freedom in the context you seem to describe. My understanding of Tom's advice to "optimize for happ

I don't think Tom equates happiness to lack of stress, or to freedom in the context you seem to describe. My understanding of Tom's advice to "optimize for happiness" is more along the lines of "optimize for self-determination". Historians seem to analyze "the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence similarly -- basically, as a right to self-determination.