What is the most important word in the world?

At first it may seem like kind of a crazy question, but it’s really important. So important that this word is the fulcrum of the ecstasy or despair that we know in this thing called “life”. Lexicographers figure there are about 40,000 words in the English vernacular, but most of us use only about 20,000 of them. The good news is that this word is probably in the 20,000 that you are using. So what is the “most important word in the world”?

Love?
Money?
Jesus?
Sex?
Covid?
All of the above?

Maybe.

The Happiness Formula
You may wonder why I’m talking about this little riddle. Well, my Sunday friend, I love you and I want you to be happy, that’s why. Have you ever wondered what makes people happy? Like the lexicologists among us, there are humans who study human happiness, define it, measure it, and draw conclusions so we can walk a happier path. And that’s a good thing because being happy is both the object and the struggle of the game of life for many among us.

Let’s say you’ve got the blues. There could be a lot of reasons for your blues from money to love to vampires, but whatever the causation, let’s just say you’ve got the blues. And then one day you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, so you say to yourself, “I need to go talk to a shrink”. After a few sessions of the 50-minute hour, your mental dentist says, “here, just take these little pills and your blues will fade away”. But maybe a pill just isn’t your thing. Maybe you’d rather indulge a sip or puff to anoint the conundrums of your life. Externals often present themselves as a good short-term fix, but they never pull the root of the unhappiness weed in the garden of your life.

Some of us have the blues because of money. The humans who study humans have concluded that it takes about $75K to push the happy button in America. In other words, if you don’t make at least $75K (fam of 4), there’s probably not a lot of happy happening at home. But strangely, once you get over that $75K threshold you don’t get a helluva lot happier either. In other words, if you make $300K, you’re not 4X happier than if you made $75K. Kind of a bummer.

And that brings us to social media (gulp). Are we raising a nation of future leaders who believe their entire self-worth is correlated to the number of clicks, likes, and subs they get? If your definition of happiness is based in the level of approval you get from a bunch of strangers responding to what is probably the lie you’re advertising as your awesome life just as they are about theirs, maybe you need, well, a new life?

Maybe.

The Word
Right now you’re probably saying to yourself, “Well yeah, I want to be happy, but I don’t want to take a pill or waste 50 minutes and a couple hundred bucks a week spilling my guts to a stranger. So what’s this one word that can solve all of my problems?”

Expectations.

That’s it. Expectations are the simple secret for a life of happiness, meaning, and fulfillment. Managing expectations is the key to successful selling, being memorable, and just showing up as someone who people actually like being around. When you get your expectations met, it’s like walking on sunshine, and when you don’t, you just sort of wander through the slog of your anger, resentment, and pissedoffness with a giant chip on your shoulder. See the difference?

Start Here
Think for a minute about your most important relationship. It could be with your person, your customer, your lover, or your child. Just pick one. How’s it going? Are you happy or pissed? Just boringly rolling along? Now ask yourself the only question that matters: what are your expectations? Are you getting what you expect? If so you’re probably pretty happy. If not, well, you get it. And yes, it really is that simple.

Keep it Simple
It’s kind of amazing how incredibly hard some of us work at making simple things complicated. This expectations thing really is simple. Like it or not, we all eventually become what we focus on most, so right now, in this minute and in this moment, begin to focus on your expectations and the expectations of those around you. It’s the one thing we can all do together to create a better world, lower the cost of prescription drugs, and be a little happier. Given all of the shit going on in the world right now, I think we could all use a little more of that.

Good luck and have a good week.

Joe Still
2023.11.12

Cite
“Life tends to respond to our outlook, and to shape itself to meet our expectations.”
– Richard M. DeVos