happiness
Explanation
The Joke
A man encounters the "Happiness Fairy," who announces she is here to make him happy. He is initially excited, but the fairy explains that this year they are taking a "scientific approach." Current research suggests that happiness is best achieved by having low expectations and then meeting or exceeding them.
So rather than granting wishes or giving gifts, the fairy proceeds to systematically crush the man's dreams. She tells him he is not smart enough for a Nobel Prize, not clever enough for a Pulitzer, not calculating enough to be president, not fit enough for the Olympics, not analytical enough to be rich. Furthermore, even if he ever had a shot at any of these, he did not start early enough -- he should have begun twenty years ago.
The fairy cheerfully concludes: "Circumscribe your dreams, Bob! Circumscribe your dreams!" Bob then says he feels "simultaneously pointless and set free, like I'm made of nothing." The fairy replies, "Don't thank me! Thank science!"
The Humor
The comic satirizes the way certain findings in positive psychology and happiness research can be twisted into deeply depressing life advice. The research finding that happiness correlates with managing expectations is real, but the fairy takes it to a hilariously brutal extreme: instead of helping someone achieve happiness through positive means, she systematically eliminates all hope and ambition.
The phrase "circumscribe your dreams" is a wonderfully dark inversion of the typical motivational slogan. Instead of "reach for the stars" or "follow your dreams," the fairy is essentially telling Bob to shrink his aspirations until they fit his mediocre reality.
Bob's final reaction -- feeling "pointless and set free" -- captures the paradox of radical acceptance taken to its nihilistic extreme. There is a strange liberation in having no expectations, but it comes at the cost of feeling like nothing matters.
The fairy's closing line, "Don't thank me! Thank science!" is a classic SMBC punchline structure, using science as a bludgeon rather than an inspiration.