While I don’t disagree with the thrust of your argument, the equation would seem to imply that happiness + expectations = reality and unfortunately I don’t think it quite works that way?

OK, I’ll bite. It does seem to match my observations that if your expectations are excessively high vs. reality then your happiness will be low. And, I have observed that people in truely... difficult(?) situations (living in North Korea/South African slums) are often still happy because what they hope for are the basics of survival, friendship and family.

I think there have been a number of studies showing that poverty does directly make people unhappy, though - or at the very least, happiness is definitely correlated with wealth. Being poor is extremely stressful. Being stressed is not necessarily going to make you unhappy, but it's certainly likely to.

There are numerous studies showing that people with basic need expectations are stressed but not depressed, while people who don't struggle about fulfilling basic needs, but have high luxury and social expectations are more depressed. Same thing has been shown at a the societal level in term of suicide levels.

Basically, the level of stress in a population or experienced by an individual has little to no correlation with happiness. The type of stress, especially the more insidious one, is probably more important.

Then, I'll add that it's all about your expectation. If we hope to put food on the table everyday, and we succeed most of the time, we will be proud and happy most of the time. If we expect to strike millions by being an entrepreneur, because we all know that we're nobody if we're not an entrepreneur, we will endure a roller-coaster of deception and small victories, with no quantifiable bearing on our success or lack thereof...

OK, maybe that should be

"let Happiness = reality - expectations"

I think he’s saying that high expectations cause sadness which would cancel out the expectations and give you reality.

But it’s obviously an oversimplification

I understand it as -- if you can influence reality to meet your expectations, great, that leads to happiness, otherwise work on your expectations.

If "reality" means competing against other smart/driven humans, be prepared to lower your expectations.

That formula works well if you think you have a thousand serious moves to make [1].

I would say, come to know this and you will be fine: Happiness = your natural state

[1]: https://www.rootsnwings.in/pdf/15TrippingOverJoyMay05.pdf

Thank you

I like the overall idea of this equation, but IMO it seems to not hold for some cases. Think about some cases when reality is far lower than expectations or reality is very close to expectations but still lower than expectations. According to this equation, you will be very unhappy for the former case and less unhappy for the latter case, but I think this doesn't hold.

For example, in the winter olympics, there was a world class ski player that had been a champion for the world cups but not an olympic medalist. She already had been in positions like 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th and she just wanted nothing but a medal. In the Vancouver olympics, she went to the final round and was very close to winning a bronze medal, but finished in 4th place. She bursted into tears and clearly seemed very unhappy in the interview.

In the opposite case, if reality is far lower than expectations, like you couldn't even pass the qualification round, you can think that like an accident. I have seen this in the PyeongChang olympics that some good players not even passing the qualification round because of the windy weather. They clearly looked unhappy, but not bursting into tears, because blaming the wind will relax their unhappiness.

it sounds quite like some (admittedly oversimplified) views of Buddhism and alike : that is be in the present. When you are in the reality 100%, then your expectations are 0%, and the equation holds :-)

Sometimes living in the future can serve you though. People who look forward to something on occasion report being happier overall than people who have nothing to look forward to. As long as that doesn't prevent you from taking action in the present, why not?

Many well known Buddhists talk about not being dogmatic in the face of your mental activity, but merely taking a step back and asking yourself: Does this serve me?