Man was not designed for happiness.
Yet its seduction is so powerful, we crave it like water.
It is after all, one of our three “unalienable” rights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
These of course, are the “unalienable rights” given to all humans by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect, so saith the United States Declaration of Independence.
“Unalienable” – adj., cannot be taken away or denied.
Inalienable is the more commonly used phrase today, same meaning.
If our creator, “God” says happiness is one of the three most important things we should have, right up there with life itself, it must be very, very important, right?
Who are we then NOT to pursue it?
The Big Lie
What a slap in God’s face it would be if he were to say it was important, and then for us to not make every effort to get some.
Yet its pursuit ruins our marriages, our friendships, our job opportunities, our income, and our health.
Who said God said anyway?
Oh yes, men. Revolutionary men out to inspire a nation to change. To be free!
And yet the very act of saying we were “entitled” to something as intangible as happiness enslaved us all the more.
Few if any of us can even define happiness, much less master the pursuit of it.
Sure, we know it when we feel it. Sex makes us momentarily happy. But that’s part of our biology, our survival instinct.
Perhaps that’s why the wealthy, slave-owning, founding fathers proclaimed the pursuit of happiness was a right? So they could go on raping slave women, you know, legally.
It is their right to pursue happiness after all. Their God given right. “You commoners can go on and pursue whatever it is that makes you happy too, OK? See, isn’t that fair? What a great country we made for you”.
I’m reminded of a bit by comedian John Mulaney. Where he appreciates the value of his girlfriend as she enlightens him on how he should be treated.
She says to John, ” You ordered your food an hour ago. It should be here already”.
John, who has previously lived his life taking crap from everyone then realizes, “Yeah, it should be!”
Thank God we had our founding fathers to remind us how we should be treated.
“You should have happiness,” they proclaimed to a country of weary farmers and merchants who were trying just to survive in a harsh, undeveloped land.
“Yeah, I should!” the people declared. And quickly voted their new saviors into political office.
Know Your Rights
Lest you think I trample our founding father’s deeds or motives, wax unpatriotic, it is not true.
I think we are entitled to life. Government and laws should protect our God given lives. We should be protected from murderers and terrorists, of course. We do our best when we feel safe.
Liberty should be ours as well. I totally support the state of being free within society without oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views. Yes, that should be our right.
Bully for the founders. They got those two right.
But by throwing in that “pursuit of happiness” they set us up for failure.
How about “the pursuit of productivity”. The pursuit of “serving humanity”. Or “the pursuit of altruism”. Or how about, “the pursuit of creativity”
Funny thing is, helping others, doing work, being creative automatically produces the happiness that we crave.
Instead of pursuing “happiness” as the goal, we should focus our efforts on doing the things that produce the happiness we seek naturally.
The goal of having a better relationship with your spouse, is so much better than the goal of being happy, which leads to your looking for another person, another lover, to make you happy.
How ironic is that oft spoken, divorce decreeing phrase, “You don’t make me happy anymore.” As if that was their job and happiness our right!
We look for others to make us happy, as if everyone were supposed to be a circus act. “Amuse me” you bellow to all people and things. “Or begone with you!”
Is that how the starving children of the world feel? Is happiness their primary concern each day?
No. Staying alive is. Finding food is. Earning money to buy food is. Finding shelter is. Survival is first and foremost in their mind. Here, the government (we the people) provide all the essentials for survival so we can then be free to focus on this pursuing of happiness. WTF?
Have we climbed too high up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid? Are we stranded by our desires? And will we continue to let this intangible desire for happiness threaten our very existence?
We break up families because “we aren’t happy”. We won’t take a job because, “I don’t think I’d be happy doing that”.
We make ourselves sick with anxiety because we feel we should be happier. “Look, they are! What’s wrong with me?”
What career should we pursue after high school? “Hmm? What would I be happy doing?”
Who the hell knows!
How about flipping the switch and thinking about how you could best serve others first? What’s needed most? How could you volunteer?
Step up to giving your best service in jobs “big” and “small”. Let the happiness of others be your goal and watch as your own happiness magically grows.
Happiness is not a destination. It is how you choose to journey.
Happiness should not be the goal, it should be the byproduct of a task performed.
It should be the whipped cream on the dessert, a small extra niceness, not the whole meal.
Hear me out day dreamers…just because they say it doesn’t mean it’s true.
And don’t believe everything you think neither.
God did not say happiness, or the pursuit of it, was your right. Or that it should be the focus of your life, or even that it was important at all.
But he did program our DNA so that when we do something good, especially for others, and with others, we feel happiness.
Do more good. The happiness you seek will then follow. It has to, it’s programmed right in.
Stop pursuing your happiness. Start doing more good.
How to Actually Be Happy
That’s where you ‘ll find the happiness you seek. In the doing.
And if by some odd quirk of the universe, or your own delusional definition of happiness, you do not acquire the happiness you seek, by your good deeds you will be still have grown as a person.
That’s as nature intended. Growth is what nature seeks in all things.
The plant must grow from seed, to sapling, to tree. Happiness never enters into it.
The lion grows from egg, to cub, to adult without the need at at all for happiness.
You were meant to grow this way too. Happiness was thrown in as a perk, and incentive to grow even more, even faster.
We have perverted it to a need. An essential. A right we must pursue. Happiness was never meant to be the water or the food of your life.
Do good. To yourself and to others and what you seek will come to you as a natural consequence.
If you chase happiness, it just runs away. It’s elusive.
Let it come to you through your good, and kind, and helpful acts.
As a happy consequence of your good, and kind, and helpful acts you will also find money and better health come to you as well.
Pretty nice, right?
What Do I Do Now?
Start thinking “What could I do?”. Find ways to serve others and you will find that your needs will be provided for too.
Be useful. Be grateful. And more will be given unto you.
Memorial Day 2019 has found “the Elder” to be in feisty spirits. Grateful for the brave men and women who have defended our rights and liberties for generations, but concerned for this new preoccupation with pursuing personal happiness, rather than the principles which made our nation great: industry, creativity, hard work, and charity towards others.
“Bene Vivere!”
ElderBob Schwarztrauber
