Do the math
By Sharla Gorder
I have a deadline.
I’ve got to be happy by Friday, March 20. That’s the International Day of Happiness, and I don’t want to get caught being miserable. I’ve got some work to do.
I’m not even sure where to start. Happiness is such a tricky concept, defined in many ways. Webster’s defined happiness as “a state of well-being, contentment and joy.” Aristotle touted happiness as the ultimate human goal, a flourishing through virtuous behaviors or “eudaimonia.” Jesus equated happiness with blessings and outlined many of them in His Sermon on the Mount. And Bobby McFerrin, of course, promoted happiness as a simple absence of worry — “Don’t worry, be happy.”
But perhaps my favorite take on the idea is so simple conceptually and complex pragmatically that it must be the one true path to unadulterated bliss.
According to Mo Gawdat, in his clever and insightful book, “Solve for Happy,” it all boils down to a simple equation: Happiness equals perception of events minus expectations. In other words, it isn’t so much what happens to me that makes or breaks me; it is how I perceive those events in light of my expectations. A big storm raging in from the Gulf can be stunningly beautiful or frustratingly inconvenient.
And this is where the subtraction part of Gawdat’s equation comes in. The stormy day is most likely to bum me out if I had made outdoor plans — if I “expected” to go paddleboarding or beachcombing. But if I had checked the forecast the night before and expected rain, I would perhaps enjoy experiencing the storm from behind hurricane-proof windows curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee and a good book. Same storm, different perceptions.
This is a pretty trite example, but the idea extrapolates to major life events, especially to the vicissitudes of life. And it seems that the equation factors more and more favorably as we age.
Many studies attempting to measure happiness across the life span yield somewhat surprising results. Researchers have found that happiness is not necessarily at its peak during the carefree days of youth, but at the other end of the spectrum. Folks in their 70s across the globe reported the highest levels of contentment.
On the surface, this seems counterintuitive. The circumstances of old age can be more challenging than in any other age group. Failing health, deaths of their peers, coming to grips with their oh-so-imminent mortality — these are the realities of septuagenarians. And yet, they are happy.
And it has everything to do with wisdom (perception honed by experience) and expectations. That equation again.
By our sixth or seventh decade on the planet, we have experienced the full gamut of life experiences — including failure and loss and heartbreak. And yet, here we are. We have survived it all.
And at this point, we know to expect more of the same. This isn’t fatalistic or dour; it’s just life. But now, we are armed with the knowledge that we have coped and will cope again. We can relax a bit and enjoy the sweet things in life as they occur without so much worry about the future — especially since there’s so much less future left to fret about. Ha!
Clearly, we don’t have to wait until we’re old to be happy. The equation works at any age because we can practice sprucing up the way we see things every day. We can alter our perspectives. Try it the next time something rains on your parade.
There really is nothing more beautiful than a Gulf Coast thunderstorm. I can go paddleboarding tomorrow.
And today, I’ll just be happy.
Maybe I don’t have so much work to do after all.
