WHY ARE WE UNHAPPY?

The EXPECTATION GAP

I love travelling & I also am a motorcyclist by passion. Living this passion led me to different destinations in India. I happened to come across various individuals suffering who left me shocked. I was not shocked to see them with problems of poverty or disability or being left undiscovered and unheard for relief. I was shocked to see them being CONTENT. Their happiness was confronting every problem I could perceive. Not all of them were as happy but shockingly they were so genuinely satisfied. Ever since I am fascinated about knowing the true means to attain happiness. I have thought about it from both economic and social perspective.

What is fascinating is, it’s not just me, you or somebody it adds largely everyone who are bad predictors of happiness. We are wealthier than ever but unhappier than ever, we are prosperous but more depressed and being less satisfied. We have fast means of transport but we have faster means to criticise than before. There are places I have heard have more suicides than homicides and comparatively we have better resources, goods, services, innovation and technology rising exponentially but we don’t see the corresponding change in our happiness and our life satisfaction. Perhaps it is one of the greater PARADOXES of our time. It obviously rises a question to "why are governments and individuals such bad predictors of happiness and why is it that we get it wrong so often". I think it is because we fail to understand the reason behind we often being unhappy. Through research, readings, observation and analysis I found an explanation far more compulsive and persuasive than others. The explanation isn’t about we getting so many choices making us stressed nor we are economically worst-off in many cases we are better than others. The explanation which is convincing and compulsive is EXPECTATIONS. At a very basic level when our expectations of reality do not match the experiences of our reality, simply expectations and realities do not match that makes us unhappy. The difference is termed as an EXPECTATION GAP. We humans form our expectations on majorly three decision making models & reasoning viz. imagination gap, inter personal gap and inter-temporal gap. Firstly, the imagination gap is something when imaginations and realities do not match. Like when we travel some place for a vacation or buy a car we do have many options to choose from. We tend to choose the one that we 'think' is going to be the best. So, we maximise our utility at given price of our thinking, that’s how most of us make our decisions. To think otherwise can be the choices we made that we thought wouldn’t be as good. Now the problem is the very decision depending on what we 'THINK' is good, that imagination is the reason that undermines our happiness. The choices we made as per our imaginative expectation has far more possibilities that it will not match the reality leading to disappointment.Primarily we check details on digital platforms on our smartphones or tabs and get fascinated wherein those images have filters or either have been enhanced to make it look attractive. Advancement in technology is one of reasons for our perseverance and imagination.What technology does is distorts reality and makes unreal seem real. When we are the happiest we tend to stubble upon things never expected. We are in a phase where our expectations are rising and realities are crushing them. When you have the technology of persuasion and selection bias it means we imagine, demand and expect more from what reality has to offers us. When the limitless nature of our minds is confined by the nature of earth we are unhappy and disappointed making imagination expectation the first reason for making us unhappy.

Secondly, the interpersonal gap is when we compare our realities with the realities of others. We judge ourselves depending on what we experience around us. When athletes competing in a Running Race Event, the winner of the race gets a Gold Medal is the happiest, the athlete coming second in or Runners-up gets a Silver Medal is not quite happy lastly the second runner-up getting a Bronze Medal is smiling considering at-least procured a place in the winners stand. Your gain is someone’s pain and your pain is someone gain unfortunately it’s a zero-sum game. It's not just relative income that matters its also relative appearance that sometimes matter as well. One person’s plastic surgery is another person’s psychological loss making it yet another reason for our unhappiness.

Finally, the inter-temporal gap is where we compare our past experiences with our present reality. We anchor ourselves to our past and if we are constantly improving, exceeding expectations and constantly moving forward you're generally happy. As parents, often we end up spoiling our children as we give them the best but often the best intensions don’t lead you to the best outcomes. Yes we should support our children and give them everything we can but not to forget if we give them everything it is harder for them to get a positive inter-temporal gradient making it harder for them to improve over time in life and undermines their happiness. Another problem in parents, we tend to repeatedly tell our children about how special, different and unique they are and they will either do better than their parents or anyone more famous/successful like Bill Gates or Britney Spears. We are in turn increasing their expectations and when they start with an average job or fail in the business like most do, they are disappointed and unhappy because their expectations aren’t satisfied.

Happiness is largely determined by expectations and expectations are determined from what we consider as normal. This normal depends on our imagination, things around us and depends on our past. So we have this constant battle between expectations and our reality. We need to self-accept that reality can or cannot have a part of our imagination. In terms of the interpersonal battle we should realise something called as self-development and self-achievements learn to compete with ourselves rather than others. Finally for the inter-temporal battle, we should support our kids and give them what we can and also make them realise when its impossible. We should avoid feeding them unrealistic expectations.