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As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. Smart people see more variables that could be changed, more components that could be

• BrokenCogs 1y ago
  That's a good quote, but it suggests that unhappy people are those who overthink and have unrealistic expectations, whereas truly happy people have expectations that match their reality. so in the end, maybe smart people are those who are better at setting their expectations compared to others (maybe more ambitious type A folk)
  • aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    > whereas truly happy people have expectations that match their reality By your hypothesis people who are poor, at the bottom of society, and told that they have no chance in life are the most happy ones. Additionally, it imples that a great way to make people happy is to brainwash them all the time that they have no chance in life, and additionally suppress them so that their expectations match their reality. This whole idea feels deeply wrong and dystopian to me.
    • BrokenCogs 1y ago
      Yes, it feels wrong and dystopian but I think there is a hint of truth there? We're all happier when we're brainwashed by mindless feeds on our phones. Then, once we snap out of it, we're supremely unhappy when we realize that what's in our feeds is not our reality.
    • rgrs 1y ago
      Poor people have no expectations?
• koakuma-chan 1y ago
  Happiness is just chemicals, it has nothing to do with that.
  • dpe82 1y ago
    The widely held notion that happiness (or lack thereof) is simply the result of chemical (im)balances is one of the greatest PR victories of the pharmaceutical industry.
    • CamperBob2 1y ago
      What else is there?
      • mixedCase 1y ago
        Happiness chemicals are the end result, and end result we cannot cause directly, anyway. What leads you there, how the process involves your particular brain and environment, and how it acts as a feedback loop are a higher concern. Even if one day you could just squirt the cocktail directly into your receptors or otherwise trick them, there's more to happiness as a part of life than turning yourself into a vegetable, but I digress.
        • koakuma-chan 1y ago
          Death is the ultimate happiness because you get to be relieved from endless suffering that life is. Other than that, yep just take some drugs.
    • inglor_cz 1y ago
      Well, people consume cocaine for a reason. But I understand your objection. It is a bit reductive to think like this.
      • CodeMage 1y ago
        Would you say cocaine makes those people happy?
• chermi 1y ago
  I think smart people are told much more often as kids how bright of a future they have. So they build up expectations of "succeeding" in some sense (becoming a doctor, getting rich, etc.). These are the sort of expectations you mention in your quote. Not only is there often pressure put on you if you're smart, you adopt those expectations yourself. Or at least hold yourself to that standard. Of course, being smart doesn't automatically equal success, there are so many other factors. So people often fall short of expectations and feel shitty about themselves and are unhappy. Then there's also the fact that high achievers often hold themselves to unrealistic standards even if they "succeed", so they also struggle to be happy.
  • jebarker 1y ago
    For me this has 100% been the main source of unhappiness in my life. I wish nobody had ever told me how smart I was as a child. The reality was that I was above average but in an unremarkable collection of kids mostly. I’ve done fine in life academically and career wise but I’ll never live up to the expectations that were planted in my head. Thankfully you can get over this/yourself and let go of ego, ambition, achievement and all that unnecessary crap.
    • mattgreenrocks 1y ago
      There is a HealthygamerGG video where he talks about gifted kids as special needs kids bc of this factor. I found it really enlightening. I definitely had to confront it in my own life. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUjYy4Ksy1E https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUjYy4Ksy1E
      • immibis 1y ago
        There is also one where he talks about how about half of his suicidal patients are not delusional and don't have some mood disorder, but are correctly recognising that their lives objectively aren't worth living. (Which is something he tries to fix.)
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• cortesoft 1y ago
  There was a movie a while back that talked about what makes people happy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_(2011_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_(2011_film) It had some interesting ideas, and one of the things that stuck with me is the idea of your brain being a "difference engine" in that the variation is what matters. If we don't experience pain, we can't experience pleasure. It seems a bit simplistic when stated that way, but I think there is something to it. Another thing I have come to believe as I have aged is that our western (American especially) society places too much emphasis on happiness, in that we think happiness is (and should be) the prime goal of every human. I have come to believe that less and less, and think something like satisfaction, contentment, and purpose are much more important as life goals than happiness. Happiness is an important part of life, and is important for reaching the other goals I mentioned, but it is not the end goal (to me). I think most of us somewhat intuitively understand this, although our response is often to redefine what happiness is rather than concluding happiness isn't our end goal. If happiness was everything, we would be much more accepting and encouraging towards hedonism than we are. A heroin addict who has a good clean supply and no responsibilities would be the ultimate dream life if we truly believed pure happiness was the most important thing.
  • Fraterkes 1y ago
    What I struggle with is that it’s hard to derive meaning from purpose when the best I can hope for is improving the lives of others until they are at the same level of comfort as me: struggling to find meaning and happiness. We can all derive purpose from trying to improve eachothers lives, but if none of us end up happy, what makes that work actually meaningfull? At some point we need something that is good in and off itself. That’s what happiness is meant to be I think
  • BrenBarn 1y ago
    You say "redefine what happiness is", but I'm not sure there's any "re"-definition necessary, it can just be about how you define it. I wouldn't say that the things you mention (satisfaction, purpose, etc.) are alternatives to happiness, but rather that they're particular forms of happiness. And maybe the hedonism of the heroin addict is another form. I'm not entirely sure it's incorrect to say that the heroin addict's life isn't a valid and desirable form of happiness in theory. The problem is that in practice pursuing that type of happiness has a high risk of plunging into extreme unhappiness. The same might be said of various other forms of happiness that we see as at least somewhat less objectionable. For instance, people who do BASE jumping may find a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment from doing it, but still many people might view that skeptically as a path to happiness, because again it has high risks of bad outcomes. I tend to think in terms of aiming for what I call "robust happiness", which means a form of happiness that's resistant to changes in circumstance, and in particular to the awareness of other people's happiness. When you're happy in a way where you can look at other people being happy and not wish to have their life or their form of happiness instead of yours, your happiness is robust in a certain sense.
• FloorEgg 1y ago
  Satisfaction is reality minus expectations. "Smart" tends to be used such that includes intelligence (rate of learning) and knowledge (how much is known). Satisfaction comes from accepting what is outside our control (accurate expectations), and making continuous progress/improvement on what is within our control (our own perceptions and actions). Intelligence and knowledge maybe don't correlate as much with wisdom as one would expect. I have met people who learn slow and don't know much but are very wise, and satisfied. Lastly, happiness is always fleeting. Happiness can't be enduring, but it can be blocked by ego and high expectations. Satisfaction can be enduring, but correlates with virtuous actions, not intelligence.
• hinkley 1y ago
  Polymaths in particular could be good or great at many things. It’s a matter of choice and opportunity. But they can’t be great at absolutely everything. So one choice closes another. And the grass is greener on the other side.
  • queuebert 1y ago
    And cumulative opportunity costs take their toll.
    • hinkley 1y ago
      Particularly if a school of knowledge is at all dangerous. To the body or the mind. For instance trying to cure an infectious disease, which is both every time you fail.
• hamburglar 1y ago
  There’s a great book by Arthur Brooks called From Strength to Strength which has a slightly different take on “reality minus expectations”: think of it as a fraction, where what you have is the numerator and what you want is the denominator. If you keep ratcheting up what you want (which is what the hedonic treadmill is all about —- you reach a goal and enjoy it for a nanosecond and then suddenly you need an even bigger achievement to satisfy you), you push happiness further away. And conversely, if you learn to want things that are actually in reach, you become happier as you achieve them.
• stephen_g 1y ago
  > As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. I don’t think that’s true, e.g. from my personal experience, I’m far more optimistic than my wife, but even though she has far lower expectations she still takes negative things with far more disappointment than I do when we face the same hardship. So generally I’m a much happier person despite having higher expectations. This is independent of intellect too for us, she would readily admit I’m more intelligent. I don’t know whether it’s a innate thing or something learned but the key seems to be that I am always primed to look on the bright side, like my brain automatically weights positives much stronger than negatives, whereas hers does the opposite. For both of us this seems to be self-reinforcing too because we always have confirmation bias because I’ve focused on the positives and can say “see it wasn’t that bad” and she will be like “see, I thought it would be bad” for the same thing.
• accrual 1y ago
  > As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. Similarly, stress is the difference between ones expected reality and ones actual reality. Less expectation, less stress. More acceptance, more happiness.
• jongjong 1y ago
  Yes, and also, being able to perceive the world in high resolution when everyone else is blind has its own challenges. Less intelligent people may be asking you to step in front of a bus because they don't see the bus and you cannot convince them that the bus exists because they're looking in the same direction as you and they don't see anything there. They don't trust your judgement, especially when others who also have equally poor vision agree with them and side against you. The majority of people have poor vision and so they see the same vague blurry shapes as each other. Because of this, they will often agree with one another and side against intelligent people; who are a minority. Moreover, it's easier to form consensus over blurry/vague concepts. This is the principle behind fortune-telling. Intelligent people will tend to disagree about details. Because they can see much more detail, there are more contentious points to argue about. It's harder for intelligent people to form consensus. Being intelligent is a source of unhappiness because it is isolating to not be able to discuss what you see with others. It's like living alone in a parallel universe. You can see lower dimensions but you can't communicate to anyone else about the extra dimensions that exist in your reality because they are incapable of comprehending them. Plato's Allegory of the Cave comes to mind.
  • lisbbb 1y ago
    I feel this way whenever anyone on here downvotes me when I rail against socialism and communism. Like, hey, maybe some people have some lived experiences that are counterexamples, just maybe?
    • jongjong 1y ago
      Probably. My parents are relatively well-off and their experience of reality is very different from mine and keeps diverging more. It's getting to the point that I can't explain my situation because of how bad it is. What happens to me, my bad luck, sounds far-fetched to them and they think I must be doing something wrong... But I work 24/7, day, nights and weekend and everyone around me tells me I'm competent... How can it be?
• DisruptiveDave 1y ago
  Joy is whatever is happening right now minus your opinion of it. (personally, I'd revise that by swapping "joy" with "contentment" or "peace")
• abhaynayar 1y ago
  I'd heard "happiness is reality minus expectations" before but never thought much of it. I had high expectations of myself in certain areas of life and worked hard towards them and I thought that they were realistic, so despite not having achieved them I still had hope. And now over time reality has caught up to me and I've become sadder because I've realized that my expectations were indeed higher than my circumstances. I was just a naive oblivious idiot and life has now shown me that. It's sad but I now have just let go. I still am working towards stuff just playing to my strengths and inclinations instead of my wants.