Chapter 3: Combining objective and subjective happiness

In this chapter I will explain how you can combine the outcomes of chapter 1 (objective happiness) and chapter 2 (subjective happiness) in order to derive total happiness.

You do not have to replicate the calculations for your own case, as you can get the results by filling in the interactive questionnaire. However, it may be good to read this chapter in order to know what is behind the figures.

Anyhow, the question how happy we should be gives a score between 0 and 10. 
The question how happy we feel gives a score between -5 and +5.
To combine the two we add the scores so that they are somewhere between -5 and +15. 
Add +5 (giving something between 0 and 20) and divide by 2. 
You now have a mark from 0 to 10 for total happiness.

Giving some examples for possible outcomes in a table, you may notice that total happiness can be significantly different from objective happiness. In other words, how happy you are is not the same as how happy you should be when somebody else is looking at your situation. This person does not know about your feelings.

The first four rows of the table show very clear how large the variation can be. In the first column we gradually increase the objective happiness from a moderate 5 to an excellent 10. In the second column we assume that we have no special feelings around happiness, i.e. we give 0. The last column shows that from the objective 5 onwards, the total happiness is lower than the objective happiness. The decrease is larger when the objective figure is higher. A satisfactory objective mark 6 gives an unsatisfactory total of 5,5. A 7 turns into a six and a 10 becomes a 7,5 only.

Strange you may say. Now I should be happy and I also indicate that I do not think that my happiness is being influenced very much by subjective factors and still I end up lower. It looks like the tax authorities.

In a certain sense you are right. This calculation can be regarded as a kind of happiness tax or even better as a retrospective collection of tax. People who are so happy that they have the full objective score (10), meaning that they are rich and have a beautiful partner, should have more positive energy en be more in equilibrium than people who do not have all this. If you end up with 0 on the subjective factors, you indicate that you have no additional energy, equilibrium and experience at your disposal in life. That does not fit with your wealth, friends and large house.

The second half of the table gives the extremes. People who should not be happy at all (0) should also not feel happy at all (-5) and therefore should have a total score of 0, which indeed is the case. If somebody answers that despite of the lack of money, house and friends he still has lots of energy and equilibrium, a total of 5 can be still be reached.

On the other hand, if someone has everything (10) and feels great (5) his total score remains 10. If the same person feels miserable (-5) the total happiness sinks to a low 5.

I hope that gradually you'll understand why we make the distinction between objective and subjective happiness.  

To some extent, the distinction is of course arbitrary. Feeling lonely is certainly related to having family or not. Equilibrium and energy are coinciding with health. But the distinction at least gives some insight in the difference between how we should and how we feel happiness.

The distinction also tells us something about the future that can be illustrated by the next table, where we have included a fourth column. This column is obtained by deducting the 3rd column from the first column.

The last column is called future. A minus sign forecasts that your total happiness will be eroded in future, because you do not have enough energy and personality to sustain this amount of happiness. A positive sign shows that you have sufficient energy and personality to build on your happiness. Even when you are unhappy now, you will overcome.

The nice thing about this theory is that you do not have to be extremely energetic to improve your destiny. If you have only 2 points for objective happiness and you indicate that you feel like -1, then your total score is 2-1+5=6. Dividing by 2 gives 3. Deducting 2 from 3 gives a whole positive point extra, which means that your happiness will increase in future.

Does it become too complicated now? Then we will leave the numbers for what they are and explain in a more graphic way the theory.

You will see that we can then distinguish six different people.

Home (questionnaire)
Chapter 1: objective happiness
Chapter 2: subjective happiness
Chapter 3: combining objective and subjective happiness
Chapter 4: six types of happiness 
Chapter 5: Influencing subjective happiness
Chapter 6: Investing in objective happiness