The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Editorials

November 13, 2009

Perspective: Happiness is a free Butterfinger

Nerissa Young

“It’s the simple things, folks. It really is,” I said Thursday morning to a newsroom full of students.

A minute earlier, a broadcast journalism student swept into the newsroom proclaiming it was a great day. I asked him why.

The Mountain Dew he bought in the vending machine had a $25 gift card to Wal-Mart on the label. He noticed a Butterfinger bar stuck in the vending machine. He waited and no one claimed it, so he shook the machine and retrieved the bar. And, to top it off, his 11 o’clock class was canceled.

Right there is a minute-long philosophy lecture on happiness. Young people have a lot to teach us if we will listen.

A day earlier, his greatest concern was the campus newspaper didn’t acknowledge it was Veterans Day.

Other students come into the newsroom bearing the weight of their daily dramas, which can be anything from not having the right scarf to wear to being upset at the plot twists from that week’s episode of their favorite TV shows. Really.

Maybe it’s good they are still young enough to escape the more serious burdens that life will bring them later, but I suspect that, at 20 years old, their personalities are pretty well formed.

Happiness is partly a matter of perspective. The student with the free Butterfinger was looking outside himself when he expressed concern that veterans were not being properly honored. The drama queens are looking inside themselves where their lives are the axis on which the world turns.

People consider happiness an event, not a circumstance. They wait for happiness to happen to them instead of finding happiness in their circumstances.

History is filled with stories of poor little rich girls and boys who have everything money can buy yet lead dysfunctional, unhappy lives. And there are the Mother Teresas who live in squalor and disease yet find daily glory in what others consider mundane and trivial.

I guarantee you the families of those killed at Fort Hood, Texas, would be happy for one more snuggle on the couch, one more text message, one more pizza out of a box with their loved ones. No amount of money can replace what they have lost.

Yet they will likely be the ones to find grace in the memory of their loved ones instead of self-pity. They will be ignited by a fire to ease the pain of others, to help those lost ones find happiness. And those acts of looking outward to offer help will bring them happiness.

Writer Mark Twain was an international celebrity at a time when few could claim that distinction. His wit and wisdom penetrated the core of humans and the human condition. He knew how to spin a fun yarn that packed enough honesty to lay bare every reader’s sins of omission and commission, but the humor took away the sting.

As he grew older and the weight of his personal tragedies grew heavier, his writing turned sarcastic and downright cruel. He changed from a writer who could point out human foibles to one who had nothing but contempt for his fellow mortals. He died an unhappy man.

Today is new. Make it a happy one. And don’t forget to thank a veteran.

— Young is a Register-Herald columnist. E-mail: ynerissa@verizon.net.

© 2009 by Nerissa Young

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