Could happiness be against public policy? When we are very young, we express ourselves perfectly and are success machines. If we want a toy, we grab it. We get what we want. If we are sad, we cry. If we get angry, we show it immediately and minutes later we are over it. Then as we get older, we are told to stop our crying, stop playing around, stop getting angry. And we gradually hide our emotions. Anger gets bottled up, sadness builds, and our childlike playfulness dwindles.

In kindergarten, we are first taught to draw inside the lines. Later in school we get our first F and are told we’re no good at math. And now we believe it and it follows us around for the rest of our life. In class, we were daydreaming and our teacher called on us, only to humiliate us and give us detention. So now daydreaming is out of the question. Throw that imagination out the window and think inside the box. Conform, get a 9 to 5 until retirement, move to a retirement community and die.

Does this sound happy to you? Not me, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. It seems that America has lost it’s spirituality and has turned to medication to numb our problems. Psychotherapeutics, which include antidepressants, are the second most dispensed drugs in the country, behind heart drugs. But drugs just mask our symptoms and line the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies.

What can we do to combat the situation? Well, think for ourselves for starters. Question everything! And question everything you do. Question everything I say, I might be wrong! THINK FOR YOURSELF!

Do you remember a time when you hugged everybody, when you laughed at least once everyday until you cried, when you climbed trees and looked up at the stars, when you looked at everything with new eyes, when you loved people unconditionally and when life itself gave you butterflies in your stomach? Believe it or not, those feelings can come back. I know, I found them again on my journey over the last 2 years. But you have to start searching because life has so much to offer!