why do we think we deserve happiness? can you give me a break already.

there has been such a furious fury of activity lately about generation Y and our self-deserving attitudes.  in particular, wait, but why: Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy  has been circulated endlessly on my facebook with witty captions by people who i assume are the completely privileged yuppies who read this shit in the first place.  come ON.  as if anyone who doesn't fall smack dab into that category is reading this horrible analysis of the selfish boys and girls who are like Lucy.

then there was the response to the demolition of dear lucy that also got its fair share of sharing by my facebook friends, Wait but Why? This is Why.  And we were all like ohhhhhhh Lucy's author got tooooollllddd!  and back and forth it went forever.  sling shots slinging cheap shots about whether it's our fault, or our parents' fault or our grandparents' fault or WHO the fuck even knows who's fault it was anymore.  i sort of tried to keep track but honestly i just kept feeling bad about myself.  i had to turn away, burry my head in the sand.  i have planned, unplanned and re-planned a trip during the time of these articles' interweb publication - said planning fuelled by a manic depressive belief that i both deserve and don't deserve happiness and adventure.  i have bbm'd about my feelings with the vigor of daenerys targaryen trying to prove to the b'ys that she isn't just a girl and does actually have dragons, and then fretted about the very fact that i have bbm in the first place.  the mere fact of being privileged enough to have a smartphone caused my initial stress from being privileged enough to have an education and a job to spiral out of control.  

THIS IS TOO MUCH YOU GUYS.  who can possibly stand this war anymore? 

i've wondered about this - who's fault is it?  you know what, maybe it really is my mom's fault.  she actually does think i am deadly.  she literally tells me all the time.  "emily," she'll say "i really do think you're deadly".  OH GOD MOM don't you see what you've done to me!  you've put all these thoughts into my head like i could achieve something!

then i realize i think my niece and nephew are deadly too and i'm obviously not willing to somehow backpedal to a time and place when we tried to encourage people with negative, hard love - the kind of love that isn't love at all, but resembles something like jealousy or hatred.  seriously!  the first person who ever tells my niece "olivia, you could be good at that if only you never..." well let me just say, they are going to be getting the old one-two from yours truly.  

that gets me thinking - is it really only my mother's generation that thought their kids were deadly?  somehow i think thinking your kids are deadly is sort inherent.  almost as if...many generations prior to generation Y and Y thought their kids, too, were deadly.

then i got to thinking, well, every other generation had to worry about war in a very meaningful way, so their bar was probably a lot lower.  what other generation (in this part of the world) has EVER gotten to meander through life safe and secure in the knowledge that we won't have to go to war unless we choose to do so?  so of course the b'ys weren't trying to figure out the next best thing because not being at war and having a job as an accountant must have been hella tight.  literally.  i bet the happiness comparison between war and crunching numbers literally was hella tight.  i refuse to use a different adjective.  hella.  tight.  

without such a comparison maybe we're all just seeking out what feels like the same kind of happiness but the bar is higher.  maybe?

maybe not.  maybe the actual thing is just that, like all things - fashion, medicine, equal wages, some of the items on the mcdonald's menu, the fries at a&w - some amount of evolution has taken place.  maybe at some point somebody realized their productivity was better when they were happy, and their marriage was better when they were happy, and their children grew to be more productive in society when they were happy.  students learned more at school when they were happy.  old people on their death beds only regretted the moments they spent being unhappy.  somebody realized that blind people smile even though they've never seen other people smile and that smiling is a reaction to being happy and there just MUST be something to that!  mental health stopped being this horrible stigma and started being a genuine health issue, we stopped blindly prescribing lithium and making people zombies, we started encouraging people to talk through their feelings.  i could carry on with examples about how we no long expect people to stay in loveless, toxic relationships, and how bullied children no longer have to remain silent when they are bullied, and about how racism and sexism and discrimination are frowned upon in society and all of these things would boil down to happiness.  they really would.  

perhaps it is the case that we are privileged (well, obviously most of us reading this are - born in a first world country, what the hell do you think you are if not privileged?) and have been told we are great when we are just average.  or perhaps it is the case that we were told to run and get ourselves all educated and now our debt is out of control and so we are trying to find a killer job before our time.  and maybe it is just that the bar is a lot higher because nobody forced us onto a battlefield.  but i just can't shake from my mind that maybe we just live in an overall evolved society where this natural part of ourselves that strives for feeling good and happy is encouraged more than ever.  call me a privileged yuppie or somebody whose mama set them up with unrealistic expectations.  i really don't care what you call it.  but, personally, i'm just going to call it reality.