It goes like this: You think you want progress, both for yourself and for the world. But most of the time that’s not actually what you want. You want to feel a gap between what you expected and what actually happened. And the expectation side of that equation is not only important, but it’s often more in your control than managing your

The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations you’re going to be miserable your whole life. You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism.

Imagine a life where almost everything gets better but you never appreciate it because your expectations rise as fast as your circumstances. It’s terrifying, and almost as bad as a world where nothing gets better.

But your happiness completely relies on expectations.

Actual circumstances don’t make much difference in all these cases. What generates the emotion is the big gap between expectations and reality.

Yet the point stands: We might have higher incomes, more wealth, and bigger homes—but it’s all so quickly smothered by inflated expectations.

Today’s economy is good at generating three things: wealth, the ability to show off wealth, and great envy for other people’s wealth.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt says people don’t really communicate on social media so much as they perform for one another. You see the cars other people drive, the homes they live in, the expensive schools they go to. The ability to say, I want that, why don’t I have that? Why does he get it but I don’t? is so much greater now than it was just a few

It was the one modern era when there wasn’t much social pressure to increase your expectations beyond your income. Economic growth accrued straight to happiness. People weren’t just better off; they felt better off.