In Pursuit of Happiness
How many stories and articles have been written on this subject in human millennia? Too many to count and still counting. So, what is the pursuit of happiness? I think it is in the eye of the beholder, to coin another cliché
Everyone has their own idea of what makes them happy. For many, it is money and lots of it because that brings self-security in the form of plenty to eat, nice clothes, a nice house, etc. That is the ultimate goal, isn’t it? A sense of security not having to worry about where your next meal is coming from or where you are going to sleep at night and every night for as long into the future as you can see in front of you.
No worry about having enough clothes to fend off the elements. After that, it’s a matter of the luxuries in life, a nice car, nice furniture for this forever house, and all of the trimmings in life that make one happy every day.
For others, who aren’t worried about the trappings in life, it’s still having comfortable basics to get through every day so they can pursue more lofty things, such as writers, scientists, and other heavy thinkers. As long as they are comfortable in their daily lives, they offer the world marvels of their intellect.
They invent things to make everyone’s lives better and if they make a little money off of their efforts, so much the better. For the more cerebral thinkers, money is just something they need to get by on while they continue to think new things. Make enough to feed, clothe and shelter themselves with very little flash.
Then there are the attention getters. Nowadays they call them “Influencers” on the internet. This type of personality has always been around in one form or another through the ages. These are the ones who demand of the world around them to “pay attention to me” by beating on their chests, figuratively speaking. With the internet social media thing going on, it is easy to post a video of themselves doing something they consider special and see if anyone else is interested enough to watch.
There are some who are very successful at this and are making a lot of money at it, Think the Kardashians. There are thousands of other wannabe social media entrepreneurs all vying to be the best influencer out there as they are chasing that almighty dollar. Being a social media star doesn’t involve much manual labor so easy work for the pursuit of so-called, easy money.
Back before technology, the attention getters were the tribal warriors. The ones who would try to outdo everyone else by hunting more, killing more enemies, and whenever they else they could achieve more than their peers, brag about it to anyone who would listen. Kings were made from some of these braggarts until someone else came along and supplanted them on the bragging throne.
Successful warriors and kings received the best portions of the food, plenty of women to bed, and luxuries to buy more later. Who wouldn’t want to try and be the best warriors of their tribe? Get it while they could as warriors back in the tribal days had short life expectancies. The same could be said for some kings.
Even now in these so-called, modern times, people with the warrior mentality have shorter life expectancies. Those of us who managed to survive into old age was very fortunate and likely have a stronger survival instinct. With modern technology, warriors don’t die as much from up close and personal battles with the enemy. Now they are blown up with high explosives and occasionally get shot by long-range weapons.
Urban combat is rare anymore but the U.S. Marines and Army engaged in this type of warfare in Fallujah, Iraq, and other places and it became survival of the fittest just like any other close quarter fighting going back to the ancient tribes of men. War is war and people die, period.
Some warriors find their happy place when engaged in high-intensity combat. I know, because I thought that this was the ultimate high. I didn’t need drugs to make me feel like I was invincible whenever I survived an encounter, I had that adrenaline high. The hard part was coming down from it because we didn’t want to let it go.
Kings, generals, and presidents get their happy dance on by leading people and convincing masses of people to follow them and obey them. The worst is the autocratic leaders who rule with an iron hand with little to no oversight. By and large, those are far and few between these days. There are a few out there but most still have to answer to a group of people under them, like American Senators and Representatives, British MP’s, and so forth.
These government officials are not that much different than the kings and presidents. They wield power or as much of it as they can get away with, just as much as the kings, Prime Ministers, and Presidents. No matter what their job title might be, their idea of the pursuit of happiness is the same.
Some would say that corporate leaders, CEOs, and company presidents, and such are much like government leaders. Some are so rich that they don’t know what to do with all of that money. They have everything they could ever want and it is still not enough. No amount of stuff makes them satisfied.
They have all of the things other people desire, as many sexual partners as they can handle, the biggest and most affluent houses, the best clothes money can buy, and so on but it is still not enough. They rule vast corporate empires and it is still not enough. Are they happy? Not deep down, no.
So, what makes someone deep down happy and satisfied with their lives? Every individual will give you a somewhat different answer. Deep down, they want the basics in order to survive until tomorrow. On the surface, they want all the luxuries that they see the media stars have. The Jeff Bezos and Elon Musks of the world. Some want to be kings of all they can see, even if it’s just the local neighborhood.
The women of the world largely want someone to take good care of them and provide the better basics in life so they can bear children and raise them up to be the next generation. That is their pursuit of happiness. Taking care of a family, guiding their significant others and children to be the best they can be with whatever environmental circumstances they find themselves in.
There are those who have given up that maternal instinct to pursue the same things the men want. Power. Make more money, become powerful, and be leaders and warriors. They are the exception to the maternal rule but there are quite a few of them out there now competing with the males for dominance. Of course, there have always been some of those and some were great people.
Queen Maeve of the Connacht people was quite famous in her time. There were other warriors and queens that became famous or infamous, depending on how history depicted them. The world is full of famous women going back to the beginnings of recorded history. Were they maternal? Some were, some not so much. There are a lot of famous women in the modern world now but, largely not very famous for their maternal instincts.
I admit that my idea of deep happiness has changed throughout my life. In my youngest days, happiness was a good meal and not making my father mad. The latter took a lot of work. After I left home, I had to learn how to not make someone else mad at me in the military, and then happiness was determined by if I survived another day, finding food and shelter as could be found. Happiness was also determined by more basic desires such as alcoholic beverages and easy women.
As I got older, happiness became more nurturing as I attempted to help raise a family in between adrenaline rushes during frequent deployments. After my children started raising families of their own, my definition of happiness became watching the grandchildren grow up and working towards retirement. My happiness now has become writing stories like this, playing with the dog, and settling on the sofa next to my beautiful wife to watch something on the TV in the evening hours.
Her idea of happiness is toiling in her gardens, playing mother to the puppy, and keeping me satisfied with her. Not that hard to do. We still want what is best for the grown-up children and by proxy, the grandchildren. Given the lives we have lived in our younger days, we deserve that now by making it this far with relative security.
Everyone should take a few minutes once in a while and ask themselves, “What will it take to make me deep down happy right now?” When you can actually come up with a deep answer from your heart, try to figure out how to get there. Maybe you are in dire straights and happiness is far away because you are too busy trying to figure out where your next meal is coming from and where you can safely put your head down for much-needed sleep right now.
There are a lot of people like that in the world now and more fall into that category every week. But, for those that can, take some time in your busy, chaotic lives pursuing that almighty dollar and figure out what will truly bring you a sense of happiness and satisfaction in life. Maybe we aren’t all that much different after all.
