I just came across this photo online, this electric sign and its message: Happiness is Expensive. It struck me at first like the petulant complaint of a spoiled diva or dandy suddenly forced to pay their own way in their faux fantasyland of swag and swagger. You just gotta have that shirt, shoe, pant, ring, watch, car, house, travel, meal, bubbly, image, and life. And when you foot the bills yourself, yeah, it’s expensive. But wait. Maybe I’m being too quick with this statement.
And then I paused and pondered. Remember when you were a kid? If you were anything like me, happiness seemed to come free of charge. It was natural, easy, available almost anywhere and anytime. It could be interrupted and often was, but it would naturally descend again on my heart, whether I was playing with friends, reading a book, cavorting with the neighbor’s dog outside in the yard, or lying on the floor of my little house arranging toys in an imaginary game. Then I grew and began to chase things and states of being and to work for approval and success and the resources I would need to work even harder for more of the same. And happiness often stood to the side and watched me, patiently available, if only I would notice. But I thought it would return to me only if I invested in all the right things, paid the price, and then again, at higher and nearly exorbitant amounts as the years passed. And the dopamine came more frequently and bigger and I was giddy, then happy again, I thought, but it was all so expensive indeed in effort and time and resources and plans. And costly in what I had lost along the way.
And then I woke up. And I began to rediscover the real path, the one of my childhood, the one where my natural partner of happiness was keen on accompanying me daily without all those demands that it turns out I had put on myself over the years, following the lead of others who were themselves a bit lost, and when I began to enjoy again the company of my old joyous inner friend, our companionship became again more constant and reliable, and seemingly free again, but really hard earned in the coin of mistake and wisdom. This new walk along the proper path had been expensive to find, indeed.
So my conclusion is that the message of the sign can mean different things at different stages, and while foolish at one, can be wise at another, and deeper, and fuller phase of life.
