Happiness = Results - Expectations
Blessed is he who has no expectations, for he will never be disappointed
Image credit: Author Sridhar Pai Tonse
“When you release expectations, you are free to enjoy things for what they are instead of what you think they should be.”
— Mandy Hale
I do not know whether this is a ‘creator truth’ or a ‘founder truth,’ but since founders are building something, it will apply to both.
The quote “Happiness is reality minus expectations.”
— Tom Magliozzi, MIT professor and co-host of Car Talk
(also quoted often by Morgan Housel, especially in his famous book The Psychology of Money).
This formulation has been widely used in behavioral psychology. Morgan Housel mentions it in The Psychology of Money, but he’s summarizing a principle that’s been discussed in Stoicism, Buddhism, and modern economics.
Naval Ravikant also paraphrases this often as:
“Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
And Prof. Gaurav Sabnis and Prof. Gaurav Vallabh from Indian academia, and even Prof. Gopal Rao from HBS, have echoed this idea in various productivity + purpose talks.
Founders and creators are tortured not by what they do — but by what they expect others to do with it.
The problem isn't the work. It's expecting the world to clap every time you post.
From my experience -both as a founder and creator: Defocus the metrics → focus on the creation cycle.
Mathematically, in the above equation, if Results is X, and expectations are zero, then happiness is still X.. Still, if the expectations are 2X, even if the results are X (and X = 100), Happiness is -100. So, as long as your expectations are high, no matter how great the results, you will be miserable.
Why waste efforts producing, creating, or building something if it doesn’t give you at least some joy? That, my dear readers, is the rationale.
There has never been a better time to create, build, or express yourself in any way you want to. And now, instead of enjoying the creative experience, you are ruining it all by worrying about impressions, views, likes, claps, restacks, and comments with restacks.
That is a joke!
Think about it. Billions of investor dollars, thousands of the world’s smartest mathematicians, data scientists, and psychologists are pouring into the creation world. Why?
To give you and me the ability to freely create and distribute our thoughts and ideas. Go ahead and create. Instead of worrying about viewership and likes, followers.
“The more you expect, the more you'll be disappointed. Focus instead on effort and meaning.”
— Inspired by Stoic teachings
If you like to watch me say it, here it is (for those more visually inclined) -
https://youtube.com/shorts/-xWv-Tk-IPY?si=sWQug-jQmoBbp6uX
F* the Output, Focus on the Input!
Share your story in the comments. Forward this to a founder who needs to hear this today.
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