Jared McCleary
Final Draft: unit 2
How to Not Be Happy
One day a kid goes out with his friends. His sister was supposed to pick them up, however, she fell asleep. The friends were stranded, and had to walk home. They get back and the doors are locked. They are forced to sleep outside. That night they learned that being homeless, carless, phoneless, not having a family, and not having money are great ways to be unhappy.
In Ahmed’s essay, “Why Happiness, Why Now,” she discusses different aspects of the “good life.” She makes a claim that when people are unhappy, they return to social ideals because they expect to find happiness there (7). In this essay I will argue that people are actually learning what makes them happy, through their unhappiness. This is important because it means that most of us will find happiness just by living our lives. In Bobby McFerrin’s song, “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” McFerrin sings about how all these things are going wrong in his life. These are things that would make the average person unhappy, but he chooses to go with the flow and not worry. These two texts discuss this idea of the “good life.” I will use them to show that in times of crisis people do return to social ideals, but not for the reason Ahmed thinks they do.
People are taking global happiness stories, and reporting the results especially if they are not what we would expect. “Would you believe it Bangladesh is the happiest nation in the world” (Ahmed, 3). A country like Bangladesh has so many things to be unhappy about, its hard to believe that they would be rated so much higher than the U.S.A. According to the world fact book, Bangladesh is a high risk nation for infectious diseases, 39.5% of the nation can not read, 35.1% of the children are underweight, and 13% of the children are forced into child labor. This place sounds like somewhere we should all want to visit… Obviously this developing nation is one of the last places we would expect to find happiness. Like I said before unhappiness teaches us about what makes us happy. What makes a Bangladeshi person happy is not getting rabies. Not getting kidnapped and forced to make shoes for no pay. There are literally hundreds of things that can make a person unhappy in Bangladesh, and when they are avoided the end result is happiness. In the U.S. we worry about very few things. Which in a way may result in our being 46th in the world happiness survey (3).
Do I have friends, family, a house, and money are the big things Americans worry about. Thinking back to the anecdote at the beginning, they had experiences that taught them to pursue the “good life.” They learned that not having those things can make a person unhappy. So all they had to do to be happy was have those things. People get evicted, lose their jobs, get their cars stolen, lose friends and family everyday; when those things do not happen the end result is happiness. McFerrin’s song perfectly supports this idea. In his song he sings about things that are relatable and widely accepted as unhappy. “Ain’t got no cash, ain’t got no style// Ain’t got no gal to make you smile.” “The land lord say your rent is late// He may have to litigate.” These lines talk about not having a girl, money, or a place to live. People pursue Ahmed’s idea of the “good life” because we all learn pretty quickly how poorly it feels to not have the good life. People are not returning to social ideals as a last ditch effort to be happy. They have discovered that not returning to the social ideals makes them sad.
Bobby McFerrin’s favorite thing to say is “Don’t Worry.” In the song he says it about a hundred times, and for good reason. Most people can make themselves happy by saying it. Say you just got evicted from your apartment and have to live with your parents. Do not worry, at least you are not homeless. Eventually you will have a house of your own and it is going to make you so much happier now that you know what it is like to not have one. Every little experience in our lives teaches us a little something about what make us happy. Ahmed thinks that unhappy people see a show like the Brady bunch, and decide that getting married and having a big family lead to happiness. It is my contention that unhappy people know from their own personal experiences that they want to be married and have a family because being alone in this world is sad. I hope somewhere along the course of this essay I have persuaded you to think similarly.