Get Happy!

On May 5th, 2003, MSN.com published a news headliner with the following eye-grabber:

Why? Well, because this is the business we're in. Meaning, nowadays, practically every popular media group on the planet seems to be busy taking serious, important issues such as "happiness," and watering them down, sugaring them up, and spinning them around backwards and inside out until they're neatly packaged, nicely publishable, and ready-to-eat in a wrinkle-free, appropriately catchy, advertiser-supported, G-rated form . . . that, most importantly, is sellable.

. . . yet when curious inquirers such as ourselves actually take the bait and click on the teasing links, we are predictably treated to the usual round of bubblegum psychobabble and bumper-sticker, yellow-bellied, pantywaist platitudes, dressed up to try to imitate something profound or even maybe just a little insightful.

(A quick side note - Is anybody else besides us sick of the "everything - including happiness - is genetic" line yet? Oops, correction: "everything - including happiness - is at least partly genetic, but we're not sure yet . . . but what we do know for sure . . . is that more research needs to be done to find out" (translation: we want more money to do research, and keep our jobs . . . so more research is needed . . . so we can keep our jobs . . . so more research is needed . . . ).

Don't get us wrong - we're sure the folks at MSN and the good doctors and scientists quoted in the article are nice people.

To help bring more happiness into your own life . . .
* Nurture your relationships!
* Act happy! (ok, so we added a few exclamation marks.)
* Get spiritual!
* Don't Worry, Be Happy!

Perhaps our irritation can be better understood if we add a little research of our own to the mix, which should put a few things into perspective:

* Suicide is the third leading cause of death among children aged 10-24
* More people die from suicide than from homicide in the United States
* A study by the World Health Organization shows that the odds of developing an anxiety disorder disorder have doubled in the past four decades
* The economic cost of drug abuse totals more than $100 billion per year
* 'Depression, takes a $70 Billion toll annually . . . and yet most employers don’t have a clue.’
* U.S. antidepressant sales alone have risen more than 800% to more than $10.2 billion since 1990, and is growing more every year.

. . . and, unfortunately, we could go on and on. And meanwhile, those folks who are supposedly the best minds in our country, are telling us to "Get spiritual!" (loud, smacking sound of hand slapping forehead).

So, does that explain why "Six Easy Steps To Happiness!" as a headline makes us want to pull out hair out?

And still . . . add to our annoyance the fact that that we've done some thinking on the topic ourselves (after all, if this kind of "happiness" is phony, what is real "happiness"?) . . . and then, you can also factor in the not-insignificant fact that the nice doctors, scientists, and media folks at MSN.com are probably making much, much, much more money than your hardworking, underpaid, mustard-sandwich-eating LiveReal Editors.

But of course, us being the jolly-good sports that we are, we want to help the nice folks at MSN out . . . in this case, by providing some much-needed followup material.

Next time, for example, when they try to feed you some kind of moronic line like "Nurture your relationships!", we'll try to help you follow that up with something that at least somewhat remotely resembles real life - like some of the stuff we've put together in the LiveReal Relationships Arena. Or, when they say something equally idiotic and condescending like "Get spiritual!" (wow, like, we've never thought of that one before!) . . . we'll at least try to take it a little further with the stuff we've gathered in the LiveReal Spiritual Arena. And so on.

- and maybe, just maybe . . . if we ever make any money whatsoever and are able to graduate up to a bean-burrito budget (hey, call us dreamers) . . . we might be able to get back to work on our "What is "Happiness"? article and take us all to an entire new level of bliss. But in the meantime . . .

Wow! Now that we've vented, we're feeling kind of . . . relieved, and . . . content, and . . . happy? Oh no! But what is "happiness"?