Happiness is the difference between your expectations and the reality.

I couldn’t find attribution for the quote above. Still, I’ve found it to be quite true in most situations. If you expect a lot and you get too little, you will end up disappointed. If you expect little and get a lot, you will probably be delighted. I prefer to think of expectation and reality as dials that can be turned up or down. Where you set your expectation and reality dials relative to one another ultimately determines your level of happiness.

If you don’t like the news you get on CNN, switch to Fox News… or turn the TV off.

If you don’t like the heat outside, go into the shade. If you are a striker and you’re not receiving through balls, find or create your own space and the passes will come.

Taking this a notch further, I think your effort is better spent turning your reality dial than your expectation dial. Why is this? Well, expectations are set from within — reality from without.

We understand our surroundings better than ourselves. This is a matter of perspectives. To get the truth of the nature of any object, you must look at it from as many angles as possible. How do we do that with ourselves?

This is likely why monks seem to be happier than most other people as they have a better understanding than most of themselves. I’ll go further and say this is also why rich people say money cannot buy you happiness. When you can exercise maximum control on your reality dial, you hit the ceiling on the changes to your external reality. Your only remaining control over happiness is now your expectations dial.

What a tradeoff.