The Winter of Our Top Banana

According to the article by James Pethokoukis, America is economically thriving but its happiness is stunted. The search for happiness and the need for economic growth tend to be at odds with each other because Americans tend to be easily dissatisfied. James' writing titled "Why I’ll take economic growth over ‘happiness’ any day" claims that the reason behind the United State's discontent is "the entire idea of drawing broad, cross-country conclusions from these subjective, survey-driven happiness indexes".

I was on my school's cross country team. I was required to run a long distance- everyone in the race is. But what if you are not happy with your race results? Not to sound like a Disney movie but when it comes to some long-term goal such as this, happiness comes from within... follow your heart. Just kidding, that is waaay too Disney. Happiness comes from reaching your personal goals and being genuinely content with your own personal growth, despite the fact that you might not be top banana in the eyes of other competitors. You have to be your own top banana.

In paragraph one I touched on the idea that Americans tend to be easily dissatisfied. Is that inherently a bad thing? I would argue it is actually good for our economic growth, despite it being not so great for our happiness. Since we live in a capitalistic country, dissatisfaction in one product means satisfaction in another because we have options and competition! Being "unhappy" in an economic sense is not a big deal (unless you are actually living in poverty). Being unfulfilled with a product simply paves the way for a better one. WOO CAPITALISM! So, unhappiness in the economic world should not be portrayed as "The Winter of Our Discontent" but rather as an opportunity or motivation to make that better product, get that promotion, sell that car, get that job or nail that interview.

So, does capitalism leave us room to be comfortably miserable and constantly wallow in our discontent? UH OH SPAGHETTI-O'S! If you answered "yes" you are missing the point of capitalism and self-improvement... better luck next time, kiddo. Dissatisfaction should not be treated as an excuse for melancholy, but rather, it should be seen as a big ol' light bulb going off in your head saying "heyyyy... maybe I should stop buying this crappy product" or "oohhh... maybe I should not work at McDonald's all my life."   

So, as the artificial James wrote addresses discontent as "unhappiness" I would say that it is, in fact, a beneficial thing to be unsatisfied in certain moments. I draw this conclusion due to the fact that being unhappy with your circumstances is a big push to change for the better. So, 'not being happy', although it does not seem entirely good at first, can be used as a helpful tool in order to drive the economy up in a healthy way by means of self-advancement. You can not live a stagnant, dull, unfulfilling life and still be happy with yourself because we are made to have dominion over the earth, rather than mope around. Our instinctive drive to keep on pushing to be the top banana is what makes capitalism so successful. It is the cherry on the banana split. Heh. Now I gotta split. Heh. I'm not peeling too well. Heh. But seriously I need to eat lunch.