Ask most people what they want from life and they will say, “I just want to be happy.” Yet with that goal in mind most of us are still walking around depressed and miserable, especially when we are sober. It’s funny how when we drink girls look prettier, we believe we can dance, and our problems don’t seem that bad. These alternate perspectives enhanced by Cosmos or Screwdrivers should tell us one thing, that our minds have the power to re-frame reality. And though booze may provide the express train to positivity, if we can get there with it, we can there without it too. A greater part of reality is created by our attitudes and our outlooks. As Dennis Kucinich once said, “We are not the victims of the world we see, we are the victims of the way we see the world.” And so, my friends, it is time to throw pessimism on the BBQ and start grilling the process and the things that make us so hard on ourselves.
I can point to a few causes. There are so much external stimuli telling us what’s wrong with us on a regular basis--from advertisements promoting picture-perfect people to a slew of shows that bring in figurative and literal wrecking balls to knock us down and make us over, offering better versions of our lives. Anyway you look at it a makeover show is saying what you are now is not good enough. Personally, I wasn’t fully cognizant of how deficient I was until I walked into a Barnes & Noble bookstore and was assaulted by hundreds of titles that promise how to make yourself better and to be the best at just about anything: How to be the Best Lover, How to be the Best Date, How to be the Best Terrorist, How to be the Best Friend, How to be the Best at Being the Worst—okay, that one I made up. But the point is that these books are really trying to sell us prescriptions for “happiness,” though, I think, they really just contribute to misery. They set up impossible goals for us and when we fail to become all they promise, we become depressed and insecure and wallow in the valley of the gap that exists between our fantasy world and reality.
And just let’s say we follow the directive of one such “self help” book, what happens then when another “better” person comes along? Does our happiness commit suicide? What if a few people buy the same book, (as publishers hope they might), who will be the “best lover” by the last page, you or the other reader? Can there be two bests? We live by such exaggerated standards it is little wonder people are depressed in increasing numbers.
The exit to “happiness” is not found along that interstate of false versions of ourselves. We see so many people today who go through endless plastic surgeries to achieve “bestness.” These processes, however, have nothing to do with being the “best YOU can be”; they are really about being better than the next guy or gal. Well brace yourselves, for there will always be someone better, younger, faster, sexier etc. The only winnable competition is against yourself and the only measurement for true happiness is are you a bit better of a person than you were yesterday? Have you overcome your own stubborn nature and done what’s good for you today? Or are you still trying to be better than your brother-in-law?
Start looking at yourself as if you were drunk and start liking what you see. I believe that there really is only one book that can help you be the best you can be and that’s the Good Book. In it you will find how great and precious you already are. For, how can we really love our neighbors as ourselves if we hate ourselves? Change your attitude from baditude to gratitude and you will see the world change before you.
In such difficult times, it’s evermore important to put smiles on our faces and start appreciating all that we do have. Stop coveting your neighbor’s ass and start watching out for your own.
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