Happiness Not Allowed
24 Jun
We don’t want people to be happy (by the term happy I’m thinking of their overall well being and quality of life). Advertisers don’t want consumers to be happy. Employers don’t want employees to be happy. Churches don’t want members to be happy. Governments don’t want citizens to be happy. Parent’s don’t want kids to be happy. Why, you ask? It’s because we’re willing to exploit the desire human beings have to be happy for the opportunity to increase our own happiness.
Advertisers don’t make as much money from happy people. They make money from people who are unsatisfied and hope that the next purchase will do the trick.
Employers want unsatisfied “go getter” types who will trade their lives for the promise of a promotion. Happy people have lives outside of work.
Churches don’t want people to be happy because our major customer is the guilt ridden and depressed. Church services and events become dispensaries for getting “high on the spirit”. If people are happy then we fear they won’t need God.
Governments don’t want people to be happy because the only way they measure success is by the GDP. This depends on a vibrant “American Dream” chasing workforce who also happen to be the consumers that fuel the demand for more shizz to be made. Get too many people saying, “I’m satisfied” and we might slip behind China! God forbid.
Parents don’t want happy kids because they’re harder to show off. Unhappy kids get honor roll bumper stickers for their parents SUV’s, are captain of every sports team, and get accepted to the top private schools… all before the 6th grade. Happy kids do what they’re good at and pretty much quit the other stuff.
Of course, I’m tempted to externalize this evil. To say the problem is those damn advertisers, employers, churches, governments, and parents. Not me. The problem is never me. Unfortunately, the truth is I am these things. I’m a marketer, business owner, church leader, voter, and parent and I’m willing to extort and manipulate the fact that people want to be happy. I want them to be unsatisfied. That’s a motivating factor for them to buy from me, give my company a competitive advantage, financially support my church, add to my country’s GDP, or motivate my daughter to become the envy of the neighborhood at everything she does. I want them like a hamster on the wheel chasing that elusive dream… but never actually catching it.
Too bad. I think the world would be a better place if quality of life of those around me were my first priority.
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P.S. I recognize that not all advertisers, employers, churches, governments, and parents are like this all the time. My point is that we operate like this more than we’d like to admit. Below is a breakdown of my estimations for how often each of the previously mentioned groups of people operate in ways that propagate unhappiness in human beings.
- Advertisers: 80%
- Employers: 75%
- Churches: 30%
- Governments: 50%
- Parents: 20%
- Brett: 1% (yes I’m lying)
This is why I believe the wisdom of the Amish is justified, I think Jesus said something about that… that ‘wisdom, is justified by her children’. They saw in the Bible it said to come out of Babylon so ye do not share in her sins and they dd that right? And I think the busyness and lack of hapiness is judgement in and of itself… God says to His children ok you like participating with Babylon well here ya go this is what happens and you will be unhappy and your pastor won’t preach contentment to the extent he should.
This electronic Babylon and beast system invloves itself in the American peoples lives more and more each and every day, we are halfway to an Orwellian State of sorts but most have not a clue what is happening. The prophets are asleep in the sprit.