Are You Happy?

Are you happy?  It’s a really good question to ask because we are often not asked this question directly?  We usually say, “Are you ok?”  And contextually we only say “are you ok” when the asking individual needs confirmation of understanding from the person being asked.  So, in a strange way, “are you ok” is not a concern for the recipient of the question but the focus on the person asking it.  Also we never ask, “are you happy,” rarely comes up, because when we meet other people we always ask, “how are you?” 

So, I am not asking you all, “how are you” I am asking, “are you happy?”  Are you?  If you are happy, then think about what makes you happy.  What is it that you feel so cheerful about?  And if you think you are not happy, then why?  Why you don’t feel happy? 

I ask this question because I question the happiness of the United States as a whole.  I feel that there are a lot of individuals that live unhappy lives.  Why?  I know everyone has their reason to be unhappy, and to even force or coerce someone in being happy, isn’t the answer.  But possibly just asking that question might be vital to someone’s wellbeing.

Yesterday, in Boulder, Colorado 10 people were shot and murdered in a grocery store.  One of the victims was a police officer, shot in the head, father of 7 children.  7 children that will never see their father again.  7 children that cannot get kisses and hugs and bedtime stories from daddy again.  The 10 people murdered all have their stories, all have their attachments to other people that love them, and now will miss them dearly. 

What is going on in this country.  Last week we had a gunman go through a bunch of Asian Spa to shoot women, most of them Asian, because he had some kind messed up sexual issues that he was rejected from these spas.  And today we get another person go into a grocery store to create mass murder.  And everyone is asking, what was the motive?  Did both of them just have a “bad day?” 

“Bad day?”  What went wrong?  When did the happiness go away, and somehow found the answer through murder?  Are you so unhappy that your best option is to take other people’s lives, and disrupt the lives of so many people from loved ones?  I feel that there is something wrong with happiness in the United States.

I have had bad days before.  At times I go through depression and feel unhappy.  But I never come to the point that I want to create harm on others.  When I feel destructive, I am overcome with the feeling of sympathy for others.  I do not like when other people feel bad because of anything I may do to seek harm.  The thought of harming others is heartbreaking because we feel sympathetic. 

Are we happy here in the United States?  What do we do to make ourselves happy or better yet what do we do when we feel unhappy?  Or how do we find peace when we feel stress and feeling the rising tension of a mental breakdown.  Remember, however you may be feeling you are never alone.  Communicate to others.  We live in a world that has become more and more connected in the last 15 years.  There is always someone that feels like you do and there is always someone that know how to help.
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Maybe we need to start asking people directly, “Are you happy?”  and “why?”  Find someone close to you and ask this question and listen and share stories, good or bad, let us find peace with each other.