As I was browsing through YouTube recently, I found this YouTube video that talks about how happiness equals reality minus expectations.
Noomi says the best way to maintain a high level of happiness is to ensure you have low expectations. According to this formula, your levels of satisfaction are inversely proportional to your expectations.
According to Brian Tracy, a psychology specialist, anything you anticipate with positivity, negativity or confidence may become your reality.
For instance, if you confidently expect to succeed, learn new things from your experience, or become wealthy, it will become a reality.
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Overview of Expectations
Don’t you have different expectations for different circumstances?
Well, you certainly live with expectations.
For example, I expect my parents to receive the best treatment possible from the individuals they interact with.
Myself, I expect a high level of faith and trust from my loved one.
In your case, you may have expectations on the places you visit, the things you use or even the food you eat.
Expectations originate from experiences, in my opinion.
I experience one of the best chickens whenever I visit KFC and thus expect other restaurant chickens to have a similar taste or even much better for me to be pleased.
However, remember that expectations may be far from the truth as they are things you either set for yourself or others.
Indeed, they are similar to objectives. Merely put, they are things you hope may happen.
Overview of Reality
Reality has a lot of substance and meaning.
Since expectations are future things, what is reality? In simple terms, the reality is the now or the results of various actions you might have done in the past.
The thing has finally arrived. Just like Starbucks’ coffee that is placed on a table a couple of minutes after making an order.
While you may not have the ability to impact or adjust to the future, you have to assess the main differences between reality and your expectations.
The two may be having the same concept regarding objectives and activities, but they regularly turn out to be different.
Well, reality doesn’t always become what you anticipated.
How Expectations Turn Negative
So, you might be wondering why expectations turn negative?
Why do anticipations lower your happiness levels? Well, it doesn’t.
It only means your expectations didn’t become what you hoped.
But what about happiness?
Well, happiness doesn’t decrease because you failed to meet your expectations. Instead, it lowers.
After all, you feel a certain disappointment level in yourself because your anticipations didn’t become a reality.
You aren’t happy due to disappointments; you are disappointed because the reality isn’t as projected.
As a result, the expectations become negative.
So Is Happiness Reality Minus Expectations?
Did you anticipate to realise your happiness is not linearly affected by the equation Happiness = Reality – Expectations?
In my opinion, that is not always the case because disappointments have a role to play.
And whether happiness is eliminated from you or not, it only comes down to you since the happiness and joy can only be removed from yourself by you.