The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness

            The inalienable right of man.  To pursue happiness.  The Declaration of Independence provides this right, the rest of the world sees this “indulgence”, we try to live the ideology, but to what end?  Is to pursue happiness what it means to be an American?

            I have traveled the world.  I have lived over seas.  My marriage is “cross-cultural”.  What I have learned is that people outside of this country have a better concept of what it means to “be American” than we do.  In doing some research for a University professor, my wife interviewed some of her friends in Istanbul Turkey, posing the question of what it must be like living in California.  The responses were all the same; California is beach, sun, surf, punk rock, happy people, the “O.C.”.  (It is interesting to know that we live in “the promise land”).  Being American is living the idea that something better lies just out of reach.

            In the final chapters of Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine, the main character is never able to escape the self-indulgence of “being American”.  “America may be fluid and built on flimsy, invisible lines of weak gravity, but I was a dense object, I had landed and was getting rooted” (Mukherjee 179).  This quote proves the main character’s belief that her concept of being American is a fantastic ideology, not reality.  “I fell in love with his world, its ease, its careless confidence and graceful self-absorption.  I wanted to become the person they thought they saw…(171).  “I am caught between the promise of America and old-world dutifulness (240).  And finally the ending passage, “greedy with wants and reckless from hope” (241). 

            The preceding quotes tell of Jasmine’s inability to take responsibility of present happiness.  Just around the corner of the next choice lies something better, this is what it means to be American; pursue happiness.

            To be caught in this never ending cycle is to deprive ones self of happiness.  I often find myself planning diligently for the next “happy event”, but fail to enjoy it when it comes.  We need to realize that the grass is just as green on this side of the fence.  It may be a different tint, but is more valuable in that it is ours.