I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness. A lot about it. There’s been a lot said about happiness. Is it a place? Is it a destination? A direction?
A journey? Is happiness the manifestation
of love and success? Google “happiness.” See what happens. A lot happens. A LOT.
Every scholar, philosopher, psychologist, blogger to ever walk the planet has made a poignant statement
about happiness and how to achieve it.
With all that free advice out there, you might think that we wouldn’t me
the most miserable group of human beings to ever walk this planet. Yet, still, we are culturally and socially,
not to mention, individually, wretched and despondent. And it’s a really good thing we are, because
we are making mother fuckers RICH with our misery. Homebuilders. Car manufactures. Tobacco companies. Distilleries.
Internet dating websites. Therapists.
Drug companies. There is A LOT of
money to be made in discontent. All of
these businesses are capitalizing on our infinite sadness.
You aren’t happy because you live in a home that isn’t
yours. Well, good news, KB Homes is
there to give you cookie cutter house that you can call your very own. That way you can raise your children in a
neighborhood where everything is the same, and if, by chance, your children
aren’t the same, they will develop feelings of inadequacy. You don’t like that you’re driving an eight
year old beater? That’s good. There are an endless number of banks who
would love to put you behind the wheel of a car you can’t afford. But you’ll look damn good in it. Probably, even, your colleagues will secretly
envy your new luxury ride. If that won’t
make you happy, I don’t know what will.
Until you lose your job or someone in your family gets sick, and the car
you couldn’t afford in the first place gets hauled off by the repo man. Maybe he’ll even come at work. That way, your once envious co-worker will
see you publicly shamed by your misfortune and marginal decision making
techniques.
So, now your bummed out because your “perfect” neighborhood
has permanently scarred your children and your new Audi is on the impound lot. You’re a little stressed about your job and
your ailing parents. Don’t worry, Five o’clock
will be here soon enough. You can go
home, light up a Marlboro menthol and pour a 7 and 7. And that will make you happier. A nicotine calm and a Seagram’s buzz makes
you feel better. Not a lot, but enough
to dull the ache of unhappiness. I
personally have never understood menthol cigarettes or distilled liquors. I’m a gold pack girl myself, but to each
their own. Anyway. You’re sitting there slurping up your gin and
juice and you realize that you’re pretty lonely. So, you cruise over to match.com and fill out
a profile. It would be nice to have some
companionship. And an orgasm. But orgasms come with reality, they come with
fantasy. So, instead of honestly answering
the questions your virtual match maker is asking you, you dig real deep to find
the most appealing half-truths about yourself.
You write that shit down and shell out $150 for your new image.
Then, when desirable potential mates start paying attention,
from their mothers’ basements, you know you’ve found it. HAPPINESS!!!!
All for a hundred and fifty bucks.
Then shit get’s real. You’ve met
the one. You know who’s also happy you
found your soul mate? The restaurants. The florists.
The jewelers. Dating is real
expensive. But it makes us happy. So we do it.
Until you catch the he or she of your dreams collecting your toenail
clippings. Well, that didn’t turn out as
well as we had all hoped, huh? On the
bright side, your sister sees an amazing therapist, who has promised to heal
your emotional suffering in no less than 12-15 months. For a nominal fee. Of $125 a week. After everything you’ve been through, that’s
kind of a bargain.
A year and a half of intensive therapy. You walk out of your shrink’s office, feeling
accomplished. You made it. You’ve found yourself, you’ve made right with
all the demons of your past, and you start to smile. Walking to your car, you are overcome with
emotion. Wait. What is this?
You just spent half a year’s income to not feel anything anymore, and
now, suddenly, you are feeling something?
Oh jesus. This isn’t good. You let the emotion go for a little
while. Because you don’t really know
what the emotion is. But you are definitely
feeling something. Now that you are done
with therapy, you don’t have anyone to tell you how to feel about that
emotion. You left therapy though. You got tools there. You can figure this out. You just can’t figure it out though. So, you call your doctor and make an
appointment. As any good patient would,
you show up 20 minutes early, only to sit there in silence for another fifty
minutes. Fifty minutes you sit there in
silence, questioning not only this emotion, but also your emotional stability. When you get in to see your doc, you look at
him and you say “I just don’t understand this feeling. It’s making me really uncomfortable. I’d really like to not feel this anymore.” He looks at you, concerned, and offers you a
solution for feeling, on a prescription pad.
Hopeless, you take the prescription to CVS and have it filled. GlaxoSmithKline thanks you for your
emotion. Likely, it wasn’t even sadness,
but you just forked out $200 to cure
your depression. Now, you are committed
to paying $200 a month for it.
Forever. Those drugs don’t make
you happy, they make you numb. But when
all the other emotion is too much to handle, numb seems to be the best
option.
I know that was a lot to get here, but this is my point: if we aren’t happy, we feel as though we must
be doing something wrong. I’m starting
to question all of this talk about happiness.
I think that maybe we have disillusioned ourselves with this idea that
we can all be happy. We just need to
work really hard for it. Or travel the
right road. Or make the right
decisions. Or have the right car or
neighborhood or partner. Those things
will certainly make us happy. It’s like we feel that happiness is an
entitlement. And if it’s not there, then
we have failed.
I had this friend once.
A woman so smart and beautiful, you would have thought she was a child
of sun. She always would say “Angela,
you can’t rely on other people to make you happy. The only person who can make you happy is
you.” But my dear friend had never known
happiness in her entire life. And one
day, while we were talking about her most recent relationship disaster. I held her in my arms and I said “Karen. The only person who can make you happy is
you.” She looked at me like I had just
cut her. We never spoke after that. I guess in theory, we all know that we are solely
responsible for our own happiness. However,
being able to put that knowledge into practice is hardest thing we will ever
have to do.
-Inner Peas
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