The Pursuit of Happiness
July 4, 2007
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We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…
–The Declaration of Independence
A Different World
This holiday I can’t help but think that the men who hotly debated the content of that formidable document and ultimately passed it 231 years ago were living in an entirely different world than we are today.
There are differences over and above the obvious technological changes. But just to help get your mind around how different the world is now, let’s do an imagination exercise.
Try to imagine how different your world would be without any of these things: cell phones, internet, email, computers, cars, trucks, electricity, air conditioning, refrigeration, television, antibiotics, anesthesia, contact lenses, air travel, plastic, synthetic materials, self propelled ships, artificial lighting, recorded music, radio, mass transportation, telephones, the list seems endless.
But living without all of those things would make for a radically different world to be sure.
A Different Worldview
When I read through the vast treasure troves of writings these great men left behind I can’t help but see that in addition to living in a completely different world, they also had a very different worldview than we do today.
The differences in understanding are legion. (Can you imagine the government today creating a significant political document today that said people “are endowed by their Creator” with anything? It would be a mess!)
One of the differences has to do with our understanding of happiness.
The great minds of the revolution such as Jefferson, Adams, Mason, and Washington saw happiness as something that was to be pursued. The burden of realizing happiness rested squarely on the individual. They felt the government’s role was simply to get out the way of the people’s opportunity to pursue their own happiness.
What a contrast with our culture today that sees happiness as something we are entitled to. If we are unhappy we’re quick to shout that it is someone else’s fault. Sometimes we blame the government. Or maybe it is our employer, or our family, or our circumstances that we target to change so we’ll be happier.
We’d rather fix the blame than fix the problem.
I suspect that whole mindset would be borderline laughable to those men of old.
Take Ownership of Your Happiness
This Independence Day, how about deciding to make a change?
Rather than focusing on what we can blame for our unhappiness, why don’t we start thinking about ways we can pursue our own happiness in spite of our circumstances?
As long as we give the responsibility for our happiness to someone else in this world, we will never get there. We’ll just be holding onto false hope and will be chronically frustrated.
The choice is ours. Actively engage in the pursuit of happiness, or sit back and complain how messed up things are.
If you choose to take ownership of your happiness, you might want to check out Chris Brogan’s post today. He’s got some great pointers on Declaring Your Independence. He’s spot on.
Very cool stuff, Chris. I love your thoughts on the idea, and it’s exciting to see the ideas you’ve put forth for creating success.
Thanks Chris. I wish I could say these ideas were entirely my own. But they sure aren’t. I’m not smart enough to come up with this stuff.
I’m more of a thought aggregator looking to collect the wisdom great minds have already come up with for me.
Chris,
Someone quite close to me once said “a government should take care of its people” to which I responded “no, a government should lead its people to take care of themselves.” You have my vote for personal responsibility - not just for what goes wrong in your life, but like you said, what goes right!” Well done.
I wish everyone here in New Orleans could read your post. Too many people want to blame the goverment for everything that goes wrong and then say you owe me something. Question:”Why do you keep asking the people who screw everything up to keep supporting you?” People too often fail to realize that the pursuit of happiness means you have to actually get up and create some action, it certainly isn’t going to be handed to you.
Well said, ozlady! It all comes back to us, doesn’t it?
Christopher, I can’t speak to what’s going on there directly. But on the national level we do seem to have a knack for putting the same sort of folks who’ve demonstrated ability for making a mess of things right back in there.
Chris,
Thank you for this most appropriate 4th of July post. As you said, it is “Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness” which our Creator endowed to us.
Mike
P.S. Somewhere Jefferson is bitch-slapping LBJ!
I can’t speak to the Jefferson/LBJ thing, but you are most welcome for the post Mike! Enjoy the day.
Well said, Chri, and Happy Independence Day.
Jerry Pournelle posted a rewrite of the Declaration of Independence done by H.L. Mencken in 1921 in the common language of the time. It makes for some interesting reading
It is an interesting read, Rick. I suspect there are many folks who don’t connect with the founding documents because of the language they use.
One thing I’ve found is that the private letters that folks wrote back then tend to use less lofty language and are significantly more readable. Even the Federalist Papers were written for general consumption and are a bit easier to digest.
But the reality is we talk differently today than they did back then so the language is a bit strange to us.
It’s the same problem I have reading the King James Bible (but 160+ years less magnified). That may be the way folks talked English in 1611. But it is often a lot of gibberish to me today.
Great Post and I agree 100%. Then yet again, there is a part of me that fantasizes over joining an Amish Community.
Okay, okay.. except for that doing laundry over river rocks part. =O)
Margaret, you are officially cracking me up!
Thanks Chris. Great ideas!
I’m a thought aggregator looking see and collect the wisdom great minds have already come up with for me.
I’m a Singaporean and i did not know that the words “The Pursuit of Happiness” was in The Declaration of Independence. Hmmm, i guess the great men back in the day were already wise enough to know what is truly important in our lives.