Discover What You Love and Do It, People Say

What if you love sleeping, eating, and vegging on social media…can you make a living doing that?

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Happiness is a recent phenomenon

When I was 10, I was briefly obsessed with the concept of happiness.

I remember asking both my grandmothers if they were happy. One of them looked at me without answering. The other one smiled and explained life isn’t about being happy….it’s a pit of tears. And to be absolutely sure I understood her, she told me when we die, we cease to exist — buried into the ground to be eaten by worms and decay into nothingness.

I asked my sister if she was happy and she told me to shut up which seemed to make her quite happy.

I don’t remember if I ever asked my mom and dad if they were happy. My dad got up at 5 am every day, coming home for dinner around 6 pm. After dinner, he’d still work: dictating into a tiny tape recorder and spreading files all over the place. My mom was a housewife who handled every aspect of childrearing and daily chores. She often spent weekdays with her best friend Elaine, shopping, having lunch at the food court, and schlepping the kids around.

Were they happy? I think so. They knew of no other way to live — work, children, bills, family, friends, holidays, higher education.