The very nature of expectations is rooted deep in the psychology mindset of humans. Expectations are usually organically generated things, whether they are located in our conscious or embedded in our sub-conscious. The bottom line is that happiness is something that humans want or even more pressing it’s a need. Lowering expectations simply means that you are emotionally and psychological flexible enough to make a change. Essentially to lower or expectations ultimately means that we have failed.
Happiness or fulfillment is neither based on failure nor settling. The article, What Makes Us Happy by Shenk clearly shows only the point of view of one subset of the dominant culture group – the white, healthy, Harvard, wealthy, males. The Grant Men study neglects the other cultural groups’ view of what it means to be happy. “A glimpse of any one moment in a life can be deeply misleading.” Looking at one snapshot of a person’s life does not indicate a life fill with happiness and fulfillment. Each individual have different worldviews thus different definitions of their sense of fulfillment and happiness.
Can a study, a survey, or one particular person’s point of view determine what makes a person happy or their sense of fulfillment? Does a person’s economic status or their gender? The United States is known as a melting pot due to the numerous cultures that are blended together. Each culture had a different set of values and morals; therefore what makes one person happy does not means it makes another person happy. The Grant Study men were wealthy white males that attend on the country’s Ivy League university. The study missed several groups, females, African American, immigrants, poor, disable, and the sexual orientation groups. The article states that Bock’s study of successful men was pitched at easing “the disharmony of the world at large” (Shenk, 2009).
Every New Year’s Day, people around the world set their new year’s resolutions, based on our expectations. We tend to fall short of these resolutions and what they actually mean. The shortcomings can lead to disappointment and often causes us to lower our expectation and change the resolution. The Danes would argue not to set high expectations. “Danes have consistently low (and indubitable realistic expectations for the year to come, a team of Danish scholars conclude. Year after year they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark.”
If you research further happiness and the sense of fulfillment is referred in the bible as one having faith that all things are possible. All you need is to put in the work and have the faith of a mustard seed and you are entitled to your heart desires; better yet, you will receive more than your heart desires. The bible also indicates that the love of money is the root of all evil. The article indicates “that money does little to make us happier once our basic needs are meeting”. However “that marriage and faith lead to happiness (or it could be that happy people are more likely to be married and spiritual); that temperamental “set points” for happiness- a predisposition to stay at a certain level of happiness – account for a large but overwhelming, percentage of our well-being”.