Happy festive emotions?!

A long time ago, I wrote about emotions and emojifying your life.  As many of you know, I’m not overly keen on emojis and the little icons that are consuming our virtual reality, because, it seems to me, that you need a degree in neuroscience to work out what they all mean. Truthfully, the only ones I completely understand are the dancing disco man, the octopus, the tractor, and the erupting volcano. However, I´m completely unsure as to when these would be useful! Seriously, you tell me!

So, thankfully, instead of ridiculing me and mocking me, a friend of mine has sent me a cheat sheet to help me decode these little smiley, grumpy, happy, confused looking faces.  But, what does this mean?

 

 

The happiness equation! Is someone pulling my leg?!

Recently, I blogged about how some kids defied Newton’s equation of the law of motion, and yesterday I read an article on the Internet which suggests that mathematically you can predict happiness.  Seriously!  Well, according to these researchers, the mathematical equation for happiness is as follows:

happiness equationAnd, based on this premise, if you can predict happiness, then logically speaking you can learn how to make yourself and others happy.

Ok, I get why so much time, effort and money is put into researching this idea. It’s obvious: ask most people what they want out of life and they say: ‘I want to be happy’. And, despite the fact that we know a lot about the consequences of this emotion, for instance it’s a well-known fact that happiness improves our mental and physical health and therefore our lives in general, generally speaking, we don’t have a clue about what makes us and keeps us happy. If we did, ‘Big Pharmaceutical’ would already be cashing in and ripping us off. magic_roundabout

(Ok, as an aside, for those of you who spent their university life popping ecstasy pills, eating magic mushrooms and watching re-runs of the TV kids show, The Magic Roundabout, this doesn’t count – yes, it’s true, these drugs usually make you feel happy but this type of happiness isn’t sustainable, nor practical if you want to function in the given constraints of modern society, i.e. you want to be a law-abiding citizen, and or, earn a living!)

So, if we have to exclude legal and illegal medication, what does this formula mean, and, how can we use it to have a happier life?

Well, according to the research, happiness and different levels of happiness is proportionately linked to the achievements of our expectations. So, for example, if you expect to achieve something and you don’t, then you are not going to be happy. However, if you expect to achieve something and you do, then you are happy, but, and most importantly, if you don’t expect to achieve something and you do, then you are over the moon with happiness and uncontrollable bliss.

scienceOk, I have 2 responses to this research:

  1. OBVIOUSLY, no shit Sherlock Holmes, Elementary my dear Watson!
  2. WHO funded this research? Moreover, why didn’t they pay me for some simple common sense?

In addition, I have one piece of practical advice for everyone who wants a happier life: Expect nothing and you will always be happy!

Seriously, that can’t be right!

Expect nothing, or lower your expectations and you’ll be happier. For example, according to this mathematical equation, if I think my boyfriend is a thoughtless waste of space, I’m always going to be happy with him because, well because if he does something, or once in a blue moon he engages his brain cells, then he has overachieved my expectations. Really, seriously, I’m sorry, but that’s just not acceptable!  Surely, happiness is much more complex than a correlation between expectation and reward.

So, if you want to read more about happiness, then click here. On the other hand, an easier solution might be to go out and drink a beer.