Happiness Ain't Free, Dude!

C’mon!Happiness comes at a cost.

Unless you want to starve or go au naturel in the streets or sleep under the trees. Or unless you’re willing to walk 8 kilometers to the nearest river to wash yourself (if there’s no body of water near you besides the stagnant one in the gutter where dengue mosquitoes breed). Or worse, you can’t drink the water near you.

I bet you won’t be happy if your stomach grumbles (you’ll soon wear out your taste for free berries in the woods). I bet you won’t be happy if you shudder from the cold with no clothes on your back (leaves can be itchy on most parts of the skin, according to research). I bet you would be nasty when mosquitoes make you their breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks while you snooze under the vast cosmos. (Come to think of it, I don’t think you can sleep at all if insects partake of your blood.)

So, is happiness free?

You got to be kidding!

If you say happiness is free to a Zimbabwean mother who tries to buy a loaf of bread on the current Zimbabwean dollar, I bet she’ll look at you the same way as when you tell her Mugabe will live till 120 years old.

If you say happiness is free to a Mexican illegal immigrant in the US who cannot get health care insurance because he is undocumented in the Land of Milk and Honey, he will guffaw his belly off.

Go try saying ‘happiness is free’ to the people of that slum in Haiti who eat mud.

This ‘happiness is free’ biz is yet the most dazed statement we have ever heard. Even vapidness comes at a ridiculously steep price. What’s more, even figurative language can cost by way of fooling people.

If I may offer a revision of a Catholic epithet: You owe it to yourself to take care of yourself. God will appreciate the little load off His back. We have been overworking Him.

Thank God, I get my epiphany from a cup of good latte (which comes at a cost, too, tsk tsk tsk).

By the way, even the Tibetan monks have to buy underarm deodorant sometime.