Is achieving happiness really not as complicated as we think? In this blog post, we’ll explain why increasing our happiness can be as simple as 1+1=2.

Are You Happy?

It’s no secret that happiness is a state that you, and everyone else on this planet wants to be in. Take a moment right now to ask yourself, “Am I truly happy?” This may be a difficult question for most people. If you are one of the lucky ones, you may confidently answer the question above with a “Yes, I believe I am truly happy.” But what if you were like most people, and you didn’t know whether you were truly happy or not? It is a challenging question. Then comes another difficult question…

How to Achieve Happiness?

If you have the chance to ask everyone you know this question, you would encounter entirely different answers that could vary from person to person. Some people may say happiness comes from wealth. Others may say happiness comes from health. And yet others may say happiness comes from achieving inner peace. But what do all these have in common? All these are things that we aspire to become or have. In other words, these are all desires. And we’ll be talking about the connection between happiness and desires in a bit.

What is Happiness?

I have been thinking a lot about happiness recently myself. This is when I remembered a lesson taught by a medical professor back in Rochester, New York. Happiness for him didn’t seem as elusive or complicated as most people think. In fact, he gave me a very simple equation for happiness…

“Happiness is equal to the number of desires fulfilled divided by the number of desires wanted.”

Read that again. This equation struck me. Not only was it so simple, but through its simplicity, was very powerful. If you recall back in elementary, the smaller the denominator, the bigger the answer. What this means is that if you reduce your number of desires wanted, your ability to achieve happiness will be even greater.

Doing The Math To Maximize Your Happiness

Now, let’s be realistic here. I know that it is impossible to bring your number of desires down to 0. What I’m saying is that the smaller your number of desires are, the closer you are to achieving happiness. The problem with us is that our number of desires is limitless. We say we want a raise, but when we get a raise, we want even more money. We say we want a car, but when we get a car, we want an even better car. When we achieve something, we want something even greater after that. It’s crazy, and this is the core of why so many people are unhappy and constantly seeking new desires.

The Road to Happiness

Happiness doesn’t have to seem so elusive as you think. In fact, you don’t have to become a monk and live in a temple for the rest of your life to achieve pure happiness. It’s about constantly reminding ourselves of this equation and wanting less. And through this, we achieve greater happiness.