The Key To Happiness

The Key To Happiness

I just came across a fascinating article named "Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy" and it had a fascinating premise coupled with an equally interesting Happiness Equation. Below is the Equation followed by the author's premise:

Happiness = Reality – Expectations

Premise: It's pretty straightforward. When the reality of someone's life is better than they had expected, they're happy. When reality turns out to be worse than the expectations, they're unhappy.

I have always believed the more accurate equation is:

Happiness=Growth

Thus:

Growth=Happiness

Think about this for a second. What is the opposite of growth? Decay, or death. Anything that is not growing is decaying or dying, thus, Happiness=Growth, and conversely, Growth=Happiness. My goal every day of my life is to grow and learn as much as I can. If I can grow like Jack and the Beanstalk, everyday, I do.

That being said, the Happiness quotient can also arguably be said to be Happiness is expectation management. In other words, as the author of the article points out, happiness really is about managing expectation. There is also an ancient Confucius proverb that profoundly makes the point:

"The wealthiest man in the world is the one who is content with the least."—Confucius proverb

In our western world, this ancient ideal is perhaps difficult to achieve, but profoundly true. It is like saying, if you never expect anything, you will never be disappointed. But aren't expectations the cornerstone of success? In other words, as Sun Tzu said 2500 years ago, Every war is won before it is fault, or in modern English we would say, the key to success in life and business is always know where you are going to come out before you go in?

I think it was Warren Buffet who said, "Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want." or, "Happiness is not having what you want, it's wanting what you have."

Buddha said "Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are. It solely relies on what you think."

Rene Scalfani profoundly said "Happiness it the key to life. It doesn't matter how much you have, what you spend, make, drive or wear. It all means nothing if you are not happy within yourself. Happiness is the the richest thing we will ever own."

P.S. I was just listening to a Bob Dylan song named "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), and there is a line in it where Bob sings, "He not busy being born, is busy dying." I originally heard this song for the first time when it was played at the end of a Sopranos episode. This is kind of the same premise that the opposite of growth is death or decay, which I mentioned earlier ;-)