In my book on dating, I wrote, “You cannot be a powerful life-changing presence to some people without being a complete joke and embarrassment to others.”
Or so claims author Mark Manson, in an online story entitled “The Hidden Cost of Happiness”.
I want to make it perfectly clear that Mr. Manson’s article has very little to do with dating, and that I was not researching online articles about dating. If I had been planning to write about dating, my essay would have been titled “The Hidden Cost of Dating, Revisited” — which, as anyone can see is not the title I picked.
Dating definitely has its costs, and most of them are even slightly hidden. They don’t even pretend to be hidden.
But happiness is different. Happiness is like a smiling so-called-friend who hands you a pop-up birthday card while picking your pocket with his other hand. The funny pop-up card is the distraction. The missing wallet, which you discover only later when you’re shopping at City Market, is the hidden cost.
Not everyone understands this as well as author Manson, who writes in his 2014 essay:
Many people believe that if they just collect a house, a spouse, a car, and exactly 2.5 children, everything will be “perfect.” Tick each item off the list, be happy and old for a couple decades, and then you die. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. Problems don’t go away — they change and evolve.
Although Mr. Mason is a best-selling author and writes as if he know whereof he speaks, I’m not sure how many people would actually be happy with 2.5 children. I suspect that most people would much prefer two children, or perhaps three children, rather than two-and-a half children.
But I totally agree with Mr. Mason that, in the end, you die. Hard to argue with that point.
I also agree that most problems don’t go away. A six-pack of beer can make them appear distant, and indistinct, but they’re still there, waiting to laugh in your face in the morning.
Of course, there are certain types of happiness that have a cost which is not hidden. In fact, they might be displayed quite blatantly… on the menu at one of our posh local restaurants, for example… or more discretely, on the window sticker of that Porsche 911 in a dealer showroom in Houston.
But the type of happiness we are considering here is the type with a hidden cost.
The type of happiness that mistakenly suggests that the best things in life are free, when in fact, the bill is arriving soon in the mail.
And one of the itemized charges on that (unexpected?) bill is embarrassment. As noted at the top of this essay, Mr. Manson reminds us that in order to fully embrace our deepest values, we will necessarily become a laughing stock to the people who embrace a completely different set of values.
Most people probably want to avoid becoming a laughing stock, so they fail to embrace their deepest values and miss out on the joy and happiness which is your rightful inheritance.
How to embrace your innate happiness? Assuming you are willing to pay the cost?
Friends, I can heartily recommend becoming a humor writer for the Daily Post. You will become a laughing stock, guaranteed.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.