[Doctors talk freely.Guan Xin Ji]The Pursuit of Happiness: Psychology

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“If happiness is just a feeling of joy and comfort in the mind, the only way to maintain this feeling is to start from the mind. Is it possible?”

expectations are different

Everyone wants to find happiness, but it always backfires. Even if you find short-term happiness, this feeling will eventually be flat or lost after a period of time.

As the saying goes: “The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment”, I believe everyone feels the same. Obviously, happiness is related to expectations and reality. Therefore, psychologists find out a happiness equation: Happiness = the ratio of objective reality to subjective expectation.

Farmers in ancient times wanted to buy an ox cart, and they were very happy when they found a good one in the market. If he bought a high-quality bullock cart at a very low price, he would be even more complacent and boast to everyone, after all, the ratio of happiness has been greatly increased. If a modern person wants to drive a Ferrari sports car, but there is a serious lack of parts for all sports cars, the new sports car will have to wait for three years to be shipped, and he is in a hurry to use the car, so he can only drive a Japanese car in the end. Although the performance of the Japanese car is quite reliable, he is not happy because his subjective expectations are too high.

As the saying goes, a rising tide raises all boats, and when our objective conditions improve, our subjective expectations will also rise. In the past, when I had no money, I was able to eat dim sum from vendors on the street. I already thought it was delicacies from mountains and seas, so delicious. If the economic conditions improve, you can often go to five-star hotels to taste authentic high-end Hong Kong-style dim sum, and then go back to the street to eat dim sum, you will dismiss it, because the expectations are different from the past.

If our objective reality conditions are bad, it does not mean that we will not be happy, as long as we deal with subjective expectations, or slightly change the objective conditions. A cancer patient’s condition deteriorated and so did expectations. He will be happier if given a new cancer drug that temporarily slows the progression of his disease, although his cancer is not gone.

The living conditions of modern people are much better than those of ancient people. It can even be said that the material life of us middle-income people is even superior to that of ancient emperors. Are we really happier than ancient people? The answer is not necessarily, because subjective expectations have also become higher and higher. What’s more, today’s social media, TV news or advertisements also influence our subjective expectations.

no lasting happiness

800 years ago, in a small village of 100 people among the Mayans in Central America, an 18-year-old boy might have thought he was the most handsome man in the village. But in the same village in modern times, an 18-year-old boy no longer thinks he is handsome, because he will be influenced by social media or advertisements. A handsome person should be like a western star or an athlete, not with small eyes and skin. Darker Mayans.

Similarly, the material conditions of the Egyptians in 2009 must be superior to those of the Egyptians in the time of Ramesses II in ancient Egypt, but they overthrew the Mubarak regime. The reason is that they expect an American democratic regime as portrayed by social media.

From a psychological point of view, human beings will never have sustained happiness, because the conditions of objective reality and subjective expectations often do not match. Subjective expectations are constantly changing, how can the actual conditions keep up? If expectations were removed, the problem would be solved, but can we humans do it? It’s not impossible, it’s just harder than climbing to the sky.

So in the next article, we’ll look for sustained happiness in a different way: medicine. The content inside will be very shocking, but remember! Don’t expect too much from it, otherwise the happiness index will drop!

(Guangming Daily/Doctor Column‧Author: Chen Changci)

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