Very few people understand the “Theory of Relativity”. And I’m not amongst those few. However I recently came across a very interesting phenomenon, which revolved around relativity. And so decided to come up with my very own “Theory of Relativity” that everybody could understand.
Theory of Relative Individual Happiness
The anticipated state of happiness is
a. Directly proportional to the immediately preceding situation
b. Dynamic and will keep changing with the changing situation
c. The only constant will be the requirement of “Relatively More”
Theory of Relative Social Happiness
The anticipated state of happiness is
a. Directly proportional to the immediately preceding situation relative to your social circle
b. Dynamic and will keep changing with the changing situation of the social circle
c. The only constant will be the requirement of “Relatively More” in comparison to the social circle
There are very simple examples that will illustrate the points above. Take your stock portfolio. Around a month ago, when the NSE Index Nifty was at around 5,250 (June 20, 2011), most people were praying that they would be very happy if the stock market rebounded to 5,600 and they would recover their losses. Around 15 days later, the Nifty was at 5,729 (July 7, 2011) everyone had forgotten about their previous prayers. And were now strutting around making predictions about how the Index was soon going to cross 6,000. Each of these individual numbers are meaningless. But they affect our happiness.
We don’t measure how much or how little we have lost. We measure our losses against the maximum theoretical profit we could have made, and hence always end up unhappy with our perceived happiness, a few hundred points away.
The exact same theory applies to our social interactions. Our happiness is typically not based on how much raise we get during our annual evaluations, but how much have I got vis-à-vis my colleagues. And even if my salary doubles, I’ll still be unhappy if my colleagues salary has gone up 2.5 times.
The fact is that relativity has very little to do with reality. And it would help if we are able to set our goals and targets based on our needs and aspirations, independent of other extraneous factors. This is neither trivial nor simple. But if you are able to achieve it, you would have achieved True Hapinees, irrespective of Relativity.
Coming to think of it, maybe it was a good thing that most people don’t understand the Theory of Relativity. Einstein’s and mine. Else life might not be as exciting, since excitement comes from tomorrows aspirations.
And don’t you think my theory of Relativity makes more sense than Einstein’s. Oops, there I go again.
The anticipated state of happiness is
a. Directly proportional to the immediately preceding situation
b. Dynamic and will keep changing with the changing situation
c. The only constant will be the requirement of “Relatively More”
Theory of Relative Social Happiness
The anticipated state of happiness is
a. Directly proportional to the immediately preceding situation relative to your social circle
b. Dynamic and will keep changing with the changing situation of the social circle
c. The only constant will be the requirement of “Relatively More” in comparison to the social circle
We don’t measure how much or how little we have lost. We measure our losses against the maximum theoretical profit we could have made, and hence always end up unhappy with our perceived happiness, a few hundred points away.
The exact same theory applies to our social interactions. Our happiness is typically not based on how much raise we get during our annual evaluations, but how much have I got vis-à-vis my colleagues. And even if my salary doubles, I’ll still be unhappy if my colleagues salary has gone up 2.5 times.
Coming to think of it, maybe it was a good thing that most people don’t understand the Theory of Relativity. Einstein’s and mine. Else life might not be as exciting, since excitement comes from tomorrows aspirations.
And don’t you think my theory of Relativity makes more sense than Einstein’s. Oops, there I go again.
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