In a world of infinite, celebrating small wins can make us happier
Choices are always fascinating. Exciting. Millions of choices to choose from. When can we be happy with the choices we make? We are always evaluating our choices in comparison with something. After all, if we don’t have a benchmark for something, there is no way to measure how good or bad that thing is. Objectively, you can. But, most experiences are subjective. With an increase in choices, we have higher expectations about how a choice will turn out. That’s because we think, if we have so many choices, aren’t there better odds of finding the perfect alternative for ourselves? Even if there was a perfect alternative, we still wouldn’t feel any happier.
Happiness is subjective
As Barry Schwartz puts in his book, The Paradox of Choice, we evaluate choices based on two things:
A. How we expect something to make us feel and
B. How it actually makes us feel.
And, if expectation = reality, then we are satisfied. If expectation < reality, then we are ecstatic. But, if reality < expectation (but still good), we are disappointed, to say the least. Even if it is objectively good, it doesn’t meet our expectations. Subjectively, it’s bad. We are disappointed by it. Subjective happiness is the difference between what we expect and how it turns out — subjective happiness = reality - expectation. So, even if the reality is really good, if your expectations are high, you aren’t as happy.
The pressure to make the best choice
Objectively, there is something better for most decisions you make. Without any constraints, every choice you make is your responsibility. So, the expectation from that choice is pretty high. But, the higher the expectation, the greater the fall (when it disappoints you).
There are two reasons why we feel pressurized to make the best choice:
- Due to the infinite number of choices, we feel like the perfect choice exists and we aren’t making efforts to find it
- Even when you’re okay with making choices that are “good enough”, you may feel judged by others for not making efforts to look for the perfect choice
Happiness may be a great emotion — but it is such a fleeting emotion that if we were to judge every experience with our idea of how happy we should be, we only end up in misery. So, if our goal is to be happy all the time, that’s our expectation and what we get is not what we expect — we are sad sometimes, we are angry sometimes, and anything but happy sometimes. That, in turn, makes us unhappy. When the reality is better than what we expected, we start adapting to the “new normal”. Now, that becomes the benchmark against which we compare every other reality. To be happier than we were, we need something that is not just better than our new expectation, but much better than how better the last reality was than our last expectation.
Dealing with expectations from ourselves
All of us have self-expectations. It’s easy to compare ourselves with ideas of ourselves that others have. When we confuse others’ expectations with self-expectations, we end up feeling bad about ourselves. You don’t have to be the person others expect you to be. It’s challenging to meet someone’s expectations of us. They don’t know us as much as we know ourselves, so their judgement may be wrong.
Let’s say we were to chase happiness throughout life. Because of how immeasurable it is, it’ll be impossible to feel like we’ve achieved great things. But, subjective happiness can be roughly measured by the difference between expectations and reality. If our reality was better than our expectations, we would be happier. While reality is not something we can control entirely, our expectations are something we can. To increase our subjective happiness, we would have to do either or both of two things: increase how good our reality makes us feel or decrease our expectations in general. The difference between our expectations and reality is what makes us ecstatic.
Even if we achieve great things, they won’t make a difference. If we keep unrealistic expectations, those achievements will drown out. We’ll be miserable. Some people don’t enjoy celebrating small wins either. They have such high expectations that small wins don’t add any value. The irony is that any big win is a series of small wins. Learning to appreciate them adds much more value than a single big win will. The number of small wins in our lives is also much more than the number of big wins. Hypothetically, if each big win meant 5 small wins, celebrating small wins is being 5x happier.
The blessing of modest expectations
Think of it this way — the more modest your expectations, the more your chances of being happier. No matter how much we chase our goals and achieve them, in the end, what matters is how those achievements feel. We should have expectations. When those expectations keep pace with what we experience in reality, the difference between the two always stays the same. So, subjectively, you aren’t feeling any happier than you already were; even if your objective well-being increases. You are on a hedonic treadmill.
As long as expectations keep pace with realizations, people may live better, but they won’t feel any better. — Barry Shwartz, The Paradox of Choice
Being satisfied with good enough means your expectations were modest, to begin with. That makes you happier than if you were to look for the best. Having modest expectations doesn’t mean they need to be the same always. If our objective well-being increases, our expectations are going to rise. If our expectations grow at a slower pace than our objective well-being, we give ourselves more chances of being surprised. That also gives us more chances to celebrate small wins and be grateful.
