Happiness: The state of being happy.

Happiness is something that has kept us preoccupied as a human race, with many people constantly in search for the state of happiness and others being content with their life.

So how do we measure happiness? Is it something that we can tangibly measure?

In today’s world, we frequently look for ways to prove to ourselves and others that we are happy. As we are all unique, we each measure happiness differently and have ranging views on what happiness truly is. With that in mind, we often mix two words together: happiness and fun. Fun can be seen as happiness; however, we use fun as a way of creating a temporary state of happiness, then once the fun is over we return to being at a level of dissatisfaction or become unhappy. This is where the illusion of being happy occurs, with many of going out at the weekend, being around our friends and even spending money as ways of showing others we are happy, when in reality, we are trying to fill the void in our lives where happiness should be.

What if there is a way in which you as a person can become happier?

Think about it like this, you become happy when the events in your life meet your expectations. Therefore, if you have low expectations you become happier, however with low expectations you have lower ambitions and won’t get particularly far. The way in which we can strive for happiness is by balancing our life’s expectations with our drive to achieve things in our lives.

One man believes he has solved our problems when chasing happiness. Mo Gawdat has created an equation to help us as a human race to achieve happiness. Gawdat had worked as an engineer for many years for big companies like IBM and then moved to Google where he lead business strategy. Due to his engineering background, he created an algorithm as he struggled to define what happiness was. By combining arbitrary moments of happiness in his life, he created this equation:

Happiness ≥ The way you see events in your life – Your expectation of how life should behave

Following this equation, it may help you find happiness in your life or even help you think about what happiness truly means for you. Mo Gawdat has recently written the book Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy further exploring the journey to happiness and elaborating on his algorithm.

Maybe it’s time to reflect on our own levels of happiness and see how we can change as a person and possibly help others find happiness

within themselves.

A world where there’s a million more happy people, will be a better world overall.