[Samurai]

Originally Posted by turbospooler

Happiness = Reality - Expectations

Simple. The end.

Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? This topic has been dealt with perfectly by Maslow, through his Hierarchy of Needs.

Besides, your formula doesn't really work. Say Reality is starvation, and Expectations are zero. Then, Happiness = Starvation. So, it is not so simple. On the other hand, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs addresses it very well. People don't become happy just because reality exceeds expectations, in fact their expectations raise to the next level. That is why Maslow needed 5 levels to address it.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by turbospooler

@locusjag: Prince Siddhartha renounced the worldly matters and one can interpret as stopping to expect anything from anyone.
And as you have rightly quoted Krishna, one needs to keep on doing his or her work without expecting things. Results will automatically come to you.

I can see that your train of thoughts on life is about managing expectations. That's a good way to maintain one's state of mind in life.

I took a stab at happiness purposefully because almost everyone (including on this thread) brings in happiness as a metric of life. That's a one-way road to misery actually. No one should expect to find happiness but should be happy if they find it along the way. This world doesn't owe us a single damned thing.

Similarly, results may or may not come. But we need to live our life regardless.

[Red Liner]

Happiness and Sadness are feelings. How does one define a feeling? It's a bit akin to defining a colour. These can only be experienced.

These feelings arise out of experiences when awake.

External objects or interactions trigger chemical secretions in our brain which gives rise to these feelings. That is all there is to it. We're almost machine like in this respect - as a group we tend to have similar group dynamics and feelings towards certain external objects or interactions.

When we buy a new car, we are happy. Dopamine is secreted in humongous quantities all throughout the purchase process. When we actually get the car in our hands, dopamine secretion reduces. Worse when it gets scratched. Some might even reverse dopamine secretion and go into depression!

Same when you're in love. Dopamine is huge when in pursuit. When marriage happens, we tend to find ways to get dopamine going in the system (second honeymoon; long trips; trying different things in the bed, kids (yes kids!) to keep the marriage alive).

Does one experience happiness or sadness when one is asleep? Deep sleep. That's about 1/4th of our life.

There's a reason why the sages of yore in India and the actual practicing priests of Europe espoused detachment, abstinence, as well as leading an extremely simple life. Less dependance on external things to trigger dopamine and short lived happiness.

Maybe there is a secret switch inside each of us to trigger dopamine/serotonin/melatonin at will without dependance on drugs, pills, or external phenomenon?

Points to ponder.