If You Want To Be A Miserable Failure, Just Do What Makes You Happy

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
There was an article in Cosmo this week with a title that summarizes all that's wrong with Cosmo and modern society as a whole: "I eloped at 25, divorced at 26, and dated my way across Europe all summer." Of course, by "dated my way across Europe" she means that she slept with half the continent.

The author, Elise, says she "started fighting" with her husband and within a few months they both decided that their differences were irreconcilable. Despite counseling, she says, "neither of us was happy." So, exhausted from 12 whole months of marriage, Elise embarked on a voyage of self-discovery and STD cultivation. She met random dudes in half a dozen countries and had sex with them, learning quite a lot as she went, though she can't really explain what exactly she learned or why sex was a necessary component in learning it. Finally, she came home and started dating some other guy. The end.

Well, not really the end. 20 years from now I'm sure we'll get the follow up article: "I'm alone and miserable and it's everyone's fault but mine." After all, you may be able to fill the emptiness in your soul with frivolous sex when you're young and physically desirable, but that phase is fleeting. People who don't want to "waste" their beauty and youth on a spouse, so they waste it instead on strangers who don't love them or even care what happens to them tomorrow, will be shocked when a tomorrow comes where even strangers aren't interested anymore. This is where the single-minded, utterly selfish pursuit of "happiness" at all costs inevitably leads: to rejection, despair, and a quiet, unnoticed death on a lonely hospital bed.

As Elise helpfully demonstrated, "do what makes you happy" is poison in a marriage. Many a vow has been broken because one or both partners decide to chase "happiness" instead of commitment, fidelity, and love. "I deserve to be happy," reports the legion of serial divorcees, as they drift on to the next spouse, and the next, and the next, and the next, looking for the one — the one, finally — who might cure the misery they've inflicted on themselves. Increasingly unhappy, yet increasingly convinced that they deserve to be.



WALSH: If You Want To Be A Miserable Failure, Just Do What Makes You Happy
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
After all, you may be able to fill the emptiness in your soul with frivolous sex when you're young and physically desirable, but that phase is fleeting. People who don't want to "waste" their beauty and youth on a spouse, so they waste it instead on strangers who don't love them or even care what happens to them tomorrow, will be shocked when a tomorrow comes where even strangers aren't interested anymore.

Bah. You gotta get while the gettin's good. :banana:

This is a dumb piece by a person with severe tunnel vision. Happiness and fulfillment are different for everyone, and just because you had a wild misspent youth :)blushing:) doesn't mean you can't or won't settle down and do something different later. This person is conjecturing hard (translation: he's making it up) about Elise's bleak future, but don't we all know someone who was wild and promiscuous in their youth who is now in a happy long term marriage with successful children? Of course we do.

There is nothing wrong with pursuing happiness, and in fact that's what you're supposed to do with your life unless you just enjoy being miserable and stressed (which is a form of happiness in its own right). My response tho this guy and his musings is, "Oh please. :rolleyes:"
 
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