A recipe for happiness
Brit comedian Eddie Izzard does a bit about a school guidance counselor. “Aim lower, you’re British,” he advises, over and over. The student’s aspirations are gradually reduced to the comically macabre performance art of “putting babies on spikes.” If you’ve seen it (it’s in Dress to Kill), you’re smiling right now. If you’ve seen other Eddie Izzard routines, you believe me that it’s funny. If you’ve never seen Mr. Izzard perform, you are wondering how this could possibly be funny. Take my word for it, or watch a sample (contains profanity).
I noticed a similar lack of ambition, or perceived lack, in the Hollywood adaptation of Nick Hornby’s book High Fidelity. The movie changed the location from London to Chicago but didn’t much change the story, except for the ending. [Spoiler alert] At the end of the book, Rob finds happiness as a club DJ, the only thing he ever really loved doing – and, of course, gets the girl. In the movie, Rob becomes a record producer with a hit single – and, of course, gets the girl. It bothers me that the book’s ending was not seen as “happy” enough for the movie (This is completely my own interpretation of the change, BTW. It may not be why it was done at all.) And it isn’t just the difference between books and film. Even British films tend to be smaller, more personal, just ask Eddie (more profanity).
I find it interesting that in America, finding joy in your passion isn’t enough for a happy ending. You need fame and fortune, acknowledgment from the world at large. The Brits aren’t any less ambitious – they used to rule the known world, that’s pretty ambitious – they just have a more liberal definition of success. You don’t have to be rich, or rule the world, or the record industry, to be considered successful and happy. You just have to pursue your dream. Perhaps after the U.S. has conquered the world, we’ll be content with smaller successes, too. Oh, wait, we won’t be doing that – we elected the other guy.
But this does seem like an awful lot of pressure to put on schoolchildren. Since only the tiniest percentage of people achieve the sort of success seen in American movies, since our culture venerates a type of happy ending few can expect, since we clearly should not be satisfied with ordinary lives, we all are doomed to disappointment and a chronic sense of inadequacy. As a child, I was told I would grow up to do great things. What are these things, I wondered, and if I don’t do them, will I be a failure?
Kids today do have one outlet, one sure way to achieve real American success – reality television. You can be famous just by being foolish in front of millions of people. You may be one of the few who get rich, so toss your hat in ring and start behaving badly. If you happen to be rich already, you have a leg up on the rest of us. In just a few weeks you could become a recognizable face, a popular personality, a villain people love to hate. You could have the caché of Dr. No, Lady Diana or Michael Vick by next Tuesday.
This, it would seem, is where our rabid ambition has led us. There are moments when I am proud to be American, glad that the accident of my birth landed me here. President Obama’s election was one of those moments. Watching TMZ, was not.
According to the World Database of Happiness, we in the U.S. are currently ranked 20th in the world for average happiness level. We drop to 68 when they take into consideration the disparity in happiness levels among our population. I wonder if we’d be happier as a people if we could find a new way to define success.