We are not happy, you fools

To start off answering this question, I would like to define what would it mean to “lead a good life”. I think the ultimate objective we all have in life is to be happy, but the problem is we don’t know what happiness is. With commodities and consumerism on the verge of taking over our lives (if not so already), we have started to forget about what we think our happiness would be, and let them (businessmen, companies, propagandas, marketers, etc.) tell us what we need in order to be happy. Now, I don’t want to go in too deep into that because it would totally remove the main focus of the question. So basically, leading a good life would mean being happy.

Now, a corrupt society. This is something much tougher to define. At first, nothing comes off the top of my head because a society can be corrupt in so many different ways.  The simplest way to define this would be that a corrupt society is a society that is lead by greed, power, and money. So this would be basically most countries (if not all) in the world. I say, blame it on Capitalism, which is again, a deeper subject which I wish I could dive deeper into. The basis of Capitalism + Democracy, is “ideal” and “perfect”, but I would have to argue that we humans are the ones who corrupt this ideal set of “rules” and not the other way around. After all, greedy people are the ones that try to trick the “system”, tipping it off balance.

Greed, defined by the freedictionary.com, it is essentially excessive desire for something. “Something” that could vary from simple things like food all the way to money – while keeping in mind that money is what moves our society today. Having excessive desire means that nothing, of anything, will ever be enough to satisfy us – so ultimately never happy, or just not happy enough. So does that mean we are not happy (leading a good life)? When I’m put in a position where I fight for what I want, over and over again, without ever being able to accomplish my initial goals, it definitely does not make me happy. In fact, I get the sense of failure, the feeling that I’m a mere nothing, and that I’ll never accomplish something in my life.

Now let’s take money and power. They could, in a different time, be “separated” into two absolutely distinct things. However, in the Capitalistic world we live in today, money equals power. So let’s keep them together just for the sake of an argument which I’m trying to make (don’t worry I’m getting there). Anyway, take this theory: if power is what we want, and power=money, then we will spend all our lives working. Working for a piece of paper, or a piece of metal that gives me power not to only fulfill my excessive desires for commodities, but also gives me power over other people: “The golden rule – he who has the gold makes the rules.” We all know how hard it is to make money nowadays, and we all know how expensive living in places like São Paulo can be. In the process of making money, and translating it into power however we forget about feelings like love, that would make a much greater change in our lives than money. We forget about family, who will never leave us, while the money can one day be worth nothing more. Greed, power, and money, corrupted our core values, and therefore corrupted our happiness, which is the only thing that truly matters when it comes to living a good life.

The three elements stated above made us forget what were the things that would truly bring us happiness. Some people, when asked, may say they are happy. But truly, are they? They may think they’re happy, when actually they don’t even know what happiness is: They’re so busy trying to work for money, trying to get a promotion, or trying to own more things, that they forget to stop and think about what they’re missing out on, or reflect what they’ve left behind. Taking all of this in consideration, living a good life is not possible in a corrupt society. Think about it: if money made us happy, wouldn’t we get tired of working for it, or thinking one day that we had enough of that already? If power as something that would make us happy, wouldn’t we stop trying to seek promotions? Or trying to overthrow a rival brand or company off the market? Because we live inside this society and we can’t escape or live outside of it, we will all eventually be corrupted. Whether that would happe forcefully, consciously or un-conciously, getting corrupted destroys inside us all, what happiness is supposed to mean. So nothing will ever suffice for you to turn to your neighbor or your friend and say: Yeah, I live a good life. 

If greed, power, and money make us "falsly happy", then we would only be thinking we were happy. That's why I say, people can believe it when they say: "yes I'm happy". Therefore searching for these "false things" would never fill the void, of the true gratification somebody would feel when they were to have the things that would truly make them happy. What are these things that can make somebody happy? Because this is an emotional state of the mind, for each person it is something unique, something different that is able to create the fire inside each and every one of them which makes life worth living. That makes their life good. I leave you then with a reflective question: What is it that makes you feel alive, feel joy, feel the pleasure of living?