For the longest time, I had always heard a fundamental equation as:

Happiness = Reality - Expectations

Pretty basic, right? We have expectations, and when reality doesn’t meet them, we’re sad and unhappy. When reality beats out what we were expecting, we’re happy. It turns out that there’s a term for this: Expectation Confirmation Theory, or ECT. This was originally developed in the world of satisfaction with a product or service, but I guess people moved it out of that domain pretty quickly.

Anyways, I don’t think that the above equation is right. For one, happiness isn’t a singular spectrum; unhappiness and happiness aren’t completely collinear. There’s a degree of independence; you can be simultaneously happy and sad.

For another, I don’t think “happiness” is quite so dependent on outperforming expectations. There are many restaurants I’ve got out to eat at several times; I’ll frequently talk to and spend time with the same people over and over again. If happiness were really that dependent on constantly outperforming expectations, you wouldn’t expect marriages to ever work - eventually, expectations would catch up to reality, nearly everyone would stop being happy with their partner, and virtually everyone would get divorced. I do believe that you can be happy with reality (as long as you’re focusing on the right things). There’s something to be said for my grandparents’ daily walks around the lake, my “adopted” grandparents’ love of beer and brewing, and the enjoyment of nature and the outdoors. I feel like I consistently have high expectations and consistently am happy when those expectations are met.

So, I’ll propose two new, slightly modified equations:

Delight = Reality - Expectations

Disappointment = Expectations - Reality

Pretty basic. When reality beats out expectations, we’re delighted. When we expect a lot but only get a little, we’re disappointed. I think that this better captures what we’re actually feeling. As a side note, as I was writing this I discovered that we tend to use more happy words than sad words. Some interesting links are here, here, and here.