Sunday, February 21, 2010

I am going to start being happy

I have never been able to fully understand why I am not a happier person. I have a roof over my head, a job to occupy the daytime hours, a family: wife, two kids, three and half grandchildren and two dogs. Certainly a lot more that many people have. Yet I am not a happy person.

Ruling out a mental or chemical imbalance of some sort, although maybe prematurely, it might possibly have something to do with the way that I have lived my life and what I have actually been doing for the past forty years or so. Possibly a career related imbalance, that could be compared to what I would call the carpenter syndrome. 

Maybe you have heard about or witnessed that a carpenter's house is always falling apart. Carpenters fix things all day long and can't get around to repairing anything in their own home. It would be too much like work for them. 

Well Willy, similar to his namesake is just another salesman and similar to all salespeople, he is a sociable guy. All of his manufacturers, distributors, resellers, consultants, developers and customers (internally referred to as endusers, which is such a negative term) think that Willy is a happy, friendly guy. Irate customers, or distraught resellers, walk away saying you guys are so friendly, helpful, and professional that I'm not going to return your product. In fact, I'm going to recommend your products to all my friends.

Day in and day out Willy has made a living being a friendly, thoughtful, empathetic and responsive person, because if he is all those things, manufacturers will give him exclusives, distributors will list his goods, resellers will stock them, customers will buy them and Willy gets a pay cheque.

This might be where you want to leave, saying suck it up man, no one loves their job. But I am getting to a point.

Willy has become unnaturally conditioned, just like Pavlov's dog. Willy will instantly respond at the slightest opportunity to create a sale or even worse the slightest provocation to become liked, transforming himself into a friendly, happy, person who with seemingly, sincerity cares about you, your problem and your life.

Unfortunately just like the carpenter, when Willy leaves work and arrives in the confines of his home, he just can't be bothered to even try and be friendly to anyone. For example, Willy has only known four people in the last sixty two years, that he considers as friends and three of those he hasn't spoken to in over fifteen years. Lots of acquaintances, fellow workers. associates, maybe a few of whom would show up at his funeral, but no one that Willy would consider friends. It took seventeen years before Willy said hello to his neighbors who have lived next door for over seventeen years and Willy still can't remember their names. In other words, at home Willy is an anti-social asshole.

Now the obvious conclusion might be that I am not a happy person because my career path has forced me to use caring, empathy, friendship and numerous other social and humanistic skills as just a tool or means to an end and I can no longer express those feelings in my personal life. However if that was the case I would leave this post also. It is just too disingenuously syrupy.

You see I have been alone this week, for the first time in 40 years. My wife went on a trip to a hot island with a friend and I've discovered that I really thrive when being alone. Hey I started blogging again, re-bonded with my dogs, and have had uninterrupted time to think, about life, the universe and the meaning of everything.

And the ultimate truth that I have discovered in my week of solitude is that I truly enjoy being a an anti-social asshole and even more importantly, there is nothing wrong with that. 

So in effort to be a happier person I am going to try and make some changes in my life.

No more mundane conversations or displays of faux interest in the lives of the Starbucks kids, that I see twice a day, just to get free coffees every now and then or rambling on about life in Syria with the guy trapped in the Canadian Tire gas bar, to get the extra Canadian Tire coupons that they keep hidden behind the counter.

I'm going to set my suppressed anti-social, asshole-like personality free. After all my wife who is returning tonight, has called me an anti-social asshole for over 40 years and she still lives with me.

So expect some changes in this blog over the coming weeks. The posts on this site have been like milk toast, non offensive, striving to be liked or accepted by some self fictionalized group and in all honestly it just may be unhealthy for my overall well being and just another opportunity to feed my altruistic, narcissism. 

Yep starting next week you'll see some changes here. Might not even fix up the layout that I messed up this week.

Drop by if you like and thank you for your time.

Strike that, I don't care if drop by and even if you got this far into this post, I'm not going to thank you.

JAWL

4 comments:

sassy said...

Your post brings a few things to mind.

- is happiness the absence of worries / concern / pain?

- hanging out with dogs is a good thing, as dogs are experts at being happy (and I mean that).

- February sucks.

WILLY said...

Right on.

I never understood why stating "my life has gone to the dogs" was considered a negative thing.

I just had a week of going to the dogs and is great.

Rev.Paperboy said...

no more mr. nice guy, Willy?

Attention must be paid!

WILLY said...

Hey Rev, didn't notice that you dropped by. It's the new me, I wasn't paying attention.

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