Happiness, such a broad sweeping word. So abstract. I’ve always liked approaching things pragmatically, so let’s see if I can make this ambiguous word more concrete.
So, what is happiness?
If you think of happiness in the philosophical sense of living the good life, then you just have to have more good days than bad and you’re set. If someone, who hasn’t accomplished anything, wakes up most days filled with a zest for the day, for life, then I’d say they’re happy. No matter how little they’ve accomplished. A good number of young adults, some in love, wake up exactly like this, and an even greater number of toddlers do. (The nerve of those little rascals! Waking up to play (to play!) instead of trying to accomplish something of merit.)
If you think of happiness as being in the zone, in the flow of things, then you just have to find something that you love that challenges you and partake in it. You can have two accountants in the same room doing the same things for the same pay-offs, and one can be happy while the other isn’t. The one who truly loves accounting, who loves working with numbers, and who is being challenged just enough (so that they don’t feel like they’re not up for the task in front of them) is happy. In this sense, two brilliant tennis players facing each other on the court are happy.
If you think of happiness as experiencing pleasure, then you just have to experience something you find pleasurable. Easy as that. Some people derive pleasure from the misfortunes of others, but I like sex, maybe you do too. Maybe you too can easily picture yourself still finding that it makes you happy whether or not you’d actually accomplished anything today, or in life. If you need to accomplish something first to be happy with the day, no matter how small, then I don’t know how to justify the feeling of joy that comes with morning sex. And I like jazz, I’ve been listening to Miles Davis while writing this, I’m pretty happy right now.
If you think of happiness as enlightenment, either intellectual, physical, or spiritual, then you just have to walk a path of constant growth. (A path with no end in sight.) Grow intellectually by consuming books and conversations from all corners of the world, grow physically by learning how you physically affect the world (what you give and produce) and how the world physically affects you (what you take and consume), this can manifest itself in daily acts of taking care of the environment or of yourself, and/or grow spiritually by learning how to connect with something greater than yourself, be it God, or nature, or humanity as a whole.
If you think of happiness as a relationship, as a process of giving joy to someone who in turn gives you joy, then you just have to give joy, as much as possible, as constantly as possible. You can’t dictate how someone else should act towards you, but people more than not give you what they receive from you. And yeah, not everyone you give joy to will reciprocate, but it’s like playing the lottery when you have all the money in the world, if you put in the work to buy all the tickets available, eventually you’ll win something. And you might even find that the whole process brought you more happiness than the actual winning of a prize. You might find the giving of happiness, no matter how small, is the happiness.
And if you think of happiness as the accomplishment of something you’ve set your eyes on, as the changing of the world around you by your hands and mind, then you just have to accomplish that thing. In this sense only, is sadness, the lack of happiness, brought on by not achieving (the other forms of happiness are derived more from the journey, not the destination).
So, to actually answer your question (Like FINALLY!! Right?), is it possible to be happy without having achieved anything? Yes, most times. It all depends on what your idea of happiness is. I personally think happiness, well, the best of many happinesses, is a moment, like hearing for the first time in your life.