[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0niijzBd1J4[/youtube]

Happiness is a complicated subject because of one simple fact: happiness is different for everyone. As a culture we are obsessed with it because we think it defines our success. Sara Ahmed, the author of “Why Happiness, Why Now?” writes about this exact subject and why our search for happiness will most likely be ineffective unless we change the way we view it. Unlike Ahmed, Kyle Fasel, a member of the band Real Friends, has a spoken word poem entitled “Sadness is the Lock” where he expresses his personal journey with happiness and sadness alike. In this essay, I will argue that despite Ahmed’s idea that personal guides from others cannot inspire happiness, Fasel’s text shows there can be a way to do so.

Major themes in “Sadness is the Lock” are age, time, and maturity. In the poem, Fasel says, “I guess I’m just trying to say that with age comes a little more comfort in who you are, and that should shut off some of that sadness.” Fasel’s band comes from a world where being sad is praised. This is because the sadder the band members are, the deeper their work is regarded as. This may be because the deeper ones emotions are, the more they have experienced, and therefore they can produce the best work. Fasel, coming from this subculture of the “sad teenager” writes about how the older he gets (passed his teenage years), the more the sadness seems to fade. With maturity and time, one is able to accept things easier and become more certain with who he or she is. Sara Ahmed has a similar theme, where she argues that we measure happiness by our preconceived ideas that have been taught to us since we are young. Although this may ring true, Fasel’s work shows that there is no way to escape these social constructions. He says that life consists of experiences that will bring us down and sometimes there is nothing left to do but grieve. There is no way to avoid these times, despite trying to challenge social constructions that Ahmed writes about. Failure to be happy by societies standards is useful and a part of life that helps us grow, change, and continue on our journey of finding what truly makes us happy.

Sara Ahmed discusses “the happiness industry” where she refers to the obsession with happiness as a business. Ahmed claims that the rise of self-help guides have not solved the problem of helping people find true happiness. Kyle Fasel’s poem aims to do just that: use a personal experience to help and teach others how to find happiness. Based on the popularity of Kyle’s band Real Friends and his work as the band’s writer, Ahmed’s point has evidence against it. The community in which the band comes from is a strong one and consists of many people who have shared experiences and use them to create art and music that inspires others to reflect on their mistakes and change their lives. A large number of these musicians and writers are role models for many, and their work has shaped individual’s lives and has helped them become happier people. Speaking from personal experience, Fasel, his band, and other similar bands, have helped me through extremely hard times in my life and have motivated me to move passed them and become a better person. It is through this process that I have learned and continuously learn how I can be a happier person.

As Ahmed continues to argue about how social ideals, things, and concepts cannot actually make us happy, Fasel shows us the opposite. Throughout her entire essay, there is a common theme that the things we are taught should make us happy, cannot. An example of this would be when she discusses how neither marriage nor wealth are true indicators of happiness. The ideals and concepts that she asks us to challenge can actually be the true cause of happiness for others. For example, when Fasel talks about what makes him happy, he says, “…it could be from growing up listening to all my favorite bands pour their hearts out in their songs. Those songs played a huge part in making me who I am today.” Also regarding music, he says, “Music was always my constant. I took to heart what those songs said.” The concept of something, like music, having a huge influence on your happiness, is something that Ahmed states as possibly not being a great indicator of happiness. Fasel, on the other hand, shows that even though he may not be happy within himself all the time, music, an outside thing, is something that has contributed to his happiness more than anything he has ever experienced. It is possible to gain true happiness from ideals, concepts, and things, even though they may be socially contructed.

Both Sara Ahmed in “Why Happiness, Why Now?” and Kyle Fasel in “Sadness is the Lock,” display ideas about their own meanings of true happiness. Even though both works have similar themes throughout, their distinction lies in Ahmed’s claim that the only way to find happiness is to break our socially constructed ideas on it. While that may be effective, there are other ways to find happiness, and some of those include the ideals that she argues against. As Fasel points out, happiness is a journey and its meaning is ever-changing as we grow and develop our character.