By G.C. Stoppel
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are Declaration of Independence keystones.
Life is good, but no if it means I spend the last months or years in great pain, immobilized and mind away with the fairies. Liberty is another good idea, provided we also understand our responsibilities and the social contract.
Happiness is the biggie for most of us. What makes you happy? A dinner of liver and onions, Brussels sprouts and sliced beets does it for me, but perhaps not everyone. We both have the liberty to eat what we like.
If you want to streak through town because it makes you happy, just remember if the police catch you, you might trade your happiness for your liberty. Your happiness might make others unhappy too.
I was happy in elementary school with the dime left me by the tooth fairy till I learned the next month a classmate received a quarter. I discovered money held power to be happy or unhappy.
To have and hold onto money and power requires some degree of greed. But does greed, whether in ourselves or others, make us happy?
A high school classmate moved to Montana to become a farrier. He finds happiness at his forge hammering out a horseshoe on his anvil and fitting it to the horse. He may not make it into the One Percent Category, but he knew that before he started bumping the bellows to heat the iron.
Another friend became a professional artist, and for her happiness is not so much the commission as it is knowing her work brings joy to those who see it. For her too, money is not everything.
In 1938, Harvard University began study of adult development. With yellow legal pads and pencils in hand, they interviewed some 700 people. Many have since passed away, but the next generation of researchers have continued the work by interviewing some 1,300 descendants.
In “The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Study on Happiness,” authors Marc Schulz and Robert Wildinger note wide varieties in the human experience. We are products of our genes, environment, personal health, education and much more.
Almost every factor except genes can be changed. We can move to a new location, take better care of ourselves, go back to school, change jobs and so on. Those who were happiest constantly re-invented or reincarnated themselves. Others blamed everyone but themselves for their misery.
A friend was given the Order of the Boot by his company when he turned 70. The HR department said he was doing a good job; it was his age that bothered them. Apparently he didn’t fit into the new, youthful image they wanted to create.
Instead of being bitter, he into business for himself doing more or less what he had been doing because he liked doing it. A decade later, he’s happier than ever because he is doing what he wants to do without a lot of micro-management.
Most people are happiest in their connections with other people.
Long before the Pandemic and Great Shut Down, many traditional community organizations and lodges began disappearing. Members who once made a point of attending their group’s activities had dropped out or were dying off.
New ones did not fill the ranks. Television, then the internet had become their new source of connecting with the rest of the world. The whole world, yes; just not other people.
In the past millions of us sent Christmas greeting cards, but that has diminished. It isn’t just the cost of the cards and postage; we just didn’t see the point of it anymore. It was quicker and easier to type out one letter, then copy in everyone on our lists. Church attendance has
A retired teacher spoke of her frustration with parent-teacher conferences at her school. Parents were encouraged to attend, spend time with their child’s teacher(s) and establish a connection. She said parents whose child would have benefited most from that interaction never came into her room. They were depriving themselves and their children.
Being in the presence of other people does not mean a connection. Crowded subway cars, elevators, in a pricey restaurant where all four at the prime table exercise thumbs on their smart devices, speaking not a word.
Maybe they were telling others elsewhere about the wonderful time they were having, just not each other. Electronic connections will never compare to the creativity when we are working on the same project in the same place.
A few decades ago when fax machines were the latest word in technology, United Airlines promoted flying showing a sales team asking ex-customers why they’d left. One answered because he never saw anyone face to face, all he got were phone messages and faxes.
The manager sent his team out to reconnect with customers. Someone asked who he was going to see, said “the one we lost.”