The Formula For Being Happy
A diagnostic and planning tool for creating the life you love. Take control of your happiness with some simple self-reflection.

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By: Ken Stark, MA, CHT

May 25, 2005

When are we happy? When things go our way, when we’re in love, when friends call, when we’re playing, traveling or whatever? No, then we are depending on things external. Better for happiness to come first from within.

The philosopher Iris Murdoch wrote, “Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.” And George Bernard Shaw wrote, “We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.” So we can be happier by making others happy, but just being busy in service to others isn’t enough. As I puzzled over the nature of true happiness, something bubbled up from a long ago art class and I blended principles of good painting ~ balance, accent and flow ~ with working and living well. The result is The Formula for Being Happy™: V² x S² x P² x L² = H.

Here’s what it means: V² = Values times Vision. S² = Stability times Structure (of which balance, accent, and flow are parts). P² = Passion times Professionalism, which together produce Power. L² = Love Given times Love Received. H = Happiness.

If you’re not as happy as you’d like, the formula can help you to figure out why. By subjectively rating each of its elements on a scale of one through ten, you can better see what’s fine and what’s not. By then writing about each element, you can further define them and start making plans to improve. You might also get the impressions of a friend, spouse, or adviser, since one’s own perceptions may be skewed.

Here’s an example. Say Evelyn’s values are clear, but her vision is foggy. She doesn’t know what she wants beyond day-to-day stability. She’s been feeling passionless, down-in-the-dumps from workplace boredom. She’s also disorganized, an aspect of being unprofessional. Finally, she loves her mate but tends to deflect the love that he gives her.

Evelyn feels relatively secure, but she’s unhappy. She wants things to get better but doesn’t know where to start. The formula can help her identify and prioritize the sources of problems and make plans to resolve them. She’ll get a boost toward making real changes.

What about you? Let’s say that you’re a collector of “stuff”, and it controls you. An assessment with the formula shows that you like collecting some things, but that your disorganization is symptomatic of being generally “unprofessional” ~ losing things, forgetting callbacks, getting parking tickets, practical problems like that. You’ve been feeling victimized, rather than recognizing yourself as the cause of such problems. But now you see that, and you can take practical steps to “get your act together.” You also can start changing your perspective, deciding that you are ultimately responsible for the good and bad you bring into your life.

Over time, the improving elements in the formula tend to reinforce each other. What may, at first, seem an arduous process will get easier. As you see practical changes happening, you’ll feel more in charge and you’ll be encouraged by the momentum. Soon you could experience joy akin to that limned by the poet Rupert Brooke: