What’s Really Important, Anyway?

I don’t want things to go back to normal. Seriously, what the hell does that even mean? “Normal.” We’re obsessed right now with the idea of restoring things to the “proper order,” or bringing back… normalcy.

Normalcy, or The Way the World Was, revolved around a system that benefitted a very small minority of people while the majority spend life perpetually indebted because we are told that to be successful, we must first pay a great sum of money to an institution with the thought that, surely, after we’d be gifted with a job, which would, naturally, be fulfilling both financially and emotionally. For some of us, that might even be the case.

But for me normalcy means working, not paycheck-to-paycheck, but day-to-day in a job that is fulfilling in neither way, relying on the goodwill of other people in order to pay off the mass amounts of debt I’ve accrued in pursuit of happiness, as is my entitlement as an American citizen .

You know, the thing I’ve always found interesting about the phrasing of that statement — Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — is that we are not, as many interpret it, referring to happiness as an undeniable human right. We’re simply saying, “Well yeah, sure. Give it a go.” You’re allowed to try to be happy.