Obstacle 1: Happiness Negation

Centuries-old cultural conditioning has given us a nasty neurosis: the belief that happiness must be "earned". It can be "earned" only by enduring unpleasantness (eg work, pain, misery). But how do you know if you've endured enough unpleasantness to deserve happiness? Another unspoken game rule: "responsible adults" can never endure enough unpleasantness to truly deserve happiness.

Laid on top of the first neurosis is the idea that spending money will make you happy. This is toffee coating on a bad puritan apple. If you spend enough money to give you the (advertised) conditions for happiness, the neurosis emerges in the form of apparently random worries, guilt, "feeling shitty", etc. Worrying is the easiest and most popular way to negate happiness. (See sidebar interlude).

So: we never stop working, we never stop spending money, we're never really happy – ideal conditions, coincidentally, for a certain type of slave economy.

from http://www.anxietyculture.com/worry.htm

Will Hates

Posted recently, rebutted tonight, courtesy Scott Willis, my brother. Had to share. 

Joshua Willis

Hmm... The older generation speaking down to the younger generation, for a litany of more popular than real faults. Surely this has never happened before.

Scott Willis 

‎1 Why shouldn't life be fair? Currently it is not, but should we accept that and admit defeat? 2 Self esteem is the only thing that will protect your mental stability. 3 I made that at 19, why shouldn't others go for it? 4 I hardly ever see my boss, Tough? No. 5 Flipping burgers earns you what opportunity exactly? 6 Yeah sure, an individual act is not the fault of the parents on a legal basis, but our parents are a major factor in who we become. There is a certain type of liability in that. 7 People don't become boring because of bills, but because of lost vision and drive, a surrender to failure if you will. 8 Real life? Grades? When have the two been correlated? And what school is this? can I attend? I know of no such institution post-preschool. 9 Depends on what career you choose. Also, a sense of self and purpose is never to be underestimated, whether in a work setting, or outside it. 10 Sure, but I go to a coffee shop on my days off, so do the people on TV, but for them it also happens to be their job. Who really thinks this anyway? How many teenagers do you know think that they will not have to work?

Putting down people when they are at their most vulnerable, and least capable of defending themselves (ie: children/teenagers) is not helpful. Did it help you? I want to see an end to the whining about the oncoming generation. It is a recurrent theme that has had what effect exactly? Yeah, your generation is definitely more original than the one that came before... Whining never changed anything, or hasn't life taught you that yet? Life teaches difficult lessons by experience, not asinine lists. If young people have an idea of the way the world should be, they will make it so, or not. The problem is that to those kids for whom this input would actually be helpful, it is useless. For those who it would help, they already know. The scorn of our forebears when made a generality is destructive and unappreciated, it accomplishes what exactly?

Putting Bill Gates in the pic tells us that we can achieve a higher level of success than is realistic, while telling us on the chalkboard that we suck. Is that really a fair comparison? The reality is that it takes all kinds to make the world go round. Scorn, no matter who it is aimed at, is not a helpful attitude. Derision is merely one group of people belittling another. Are you really one of those? I refuse to be.

My generation outnumbers yours 2-1. What do you think we will tell YOU when you're old and expect us to pay for your medical care and social security if what you give us now is negativity? I'm pretty sure we'll be sympathetic... Trust us... After all, for the majority of Americans from your generation, there is no other choice. You're not good financial planners as a whole.