Neo-Epicurean Life Hacks

[Mequa]

To me, a wish to " be happy" smacks of immaturity. Wisdom does not bring happiness. It may bring acceptance, and peace of mind, but happiness is for the foolish, and for children.

Quite a bald assertion.

The Greek term hedone (the root of "hedonism") can translate as either pleasure or happiness. Epicurus would have agreed with your assertion that hedone translates to ataraxia (acceptance and peace of mind), here based on sustainable long-term happiness which to Epicurus is closely tied to the removal of primarily mental suffering. This is a more robust philosophical form of "hedonism" than your idea of "being happy" (happy-go-lucky?) or the other unphilosophical form, physical pleasure seeking. It's actually much like Buddhism in some ways, including with your quote below:

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“He who has learned the limits of life knows that it is easy to provide that which removes the feeling of pain owing to want and make one’s whole life perfect. So there is no need for things which involve struggle” – Epicurus

Kind of the anti-Nietzsche. Sounds like a hippie

To "remove the feeling of pain owing to want" is a variation of the Buddhist idea of Nirvana, where one is liberated from the pain of desire. (Epicurus still thought some desires natural and necessary.) Nietzsche did also seem to invert Buddhism on this point in his philosophy, arguing against reduction of desire.

As for Epicureanism being a hippie, lazy slacker's philosophy, this view was argued against by Thomas Jefferson in his Letter to William Short:

I take the liberty of observing that you are not a true disciple of our master Epicurus, in indulging the indolence to which you say you are yielding. One of his canons, you know, was that "that indulgence which prevents a greater pleasure, or produces a greater pain, is to be avoided." Your love of repose will lead, in its progress, to a suspension of healthy exercise, a relaxation of mind, an indifference to everything around you, and finally to a debility of body, and hebetude of mind, the farthest of all things from the happiness which the well-regulated indulgences of Epicurus ensure; fortitude, you know is one of his four cardinal virtues. That teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties; not to fly from them, like cowards; and to fly, too, in vain, for they will meet and arrest us at every turn of our road.

Jefferson's reading of Epicurus notes, as recorded in Cicero's De Finibus, that fortitude is considered a cardinal virtue in Epicureanism, and as with all virtues developed out of prudence, praised purely for its utility as a means to the end of personal happiness. Jefferson argues that this is not compatible with laziness nor cowardice - that is, the latter are seen as imprudent and thus foolish - on the Epicurean theory of wisdom, which aims for long-term personal well-being.