We often think of happiness as something to be pursued, cultivated, captured. It’s an elusive or state of being that we are constantly trying to maintain. Researchers devote their time to figuring out, Why Are We Happy? Why Aren’t We Happy? And now, it seems, happiness is not quite as random as we thought. Researchers in Britain have found an equation that can predict moment-to-moment happiness, a rare piece of quantifiable data in a field so based on feelings. And what it found? Happiness isn’t based on how well we are doing at that particular time. It’s wrapped up in our expectations for how we should be doing, and it comes from if we’re doing better or worse than we expected we’d be. Good to know next time we’re trying to figure out where we should be in life.