Ads smother the pages to focus on the materials necessary to a “happy” life. However, I daily watch girls obsessing over blemishes in their makeup, I see guys taking shots to experience a drunken frenzy. I experience families fall apart because a younger, sexy female is so much more desirable than a loving wife. Where is the happiness in the world? Living in America, temptations constantly encompass each day and victims spiral into a whirlwind of addictive pleasure.This summer I stepped away from American society and traveled to Ghana for two weeks. The first week I lived in the village, Dagbe, and I never imagined that spending a week there could be so challenging and rewarding at the same time. The night we arrived, about 70 villagers greeted us with dancing and singing for an hour, just thoroughly ecstatic that “obrunis” (white people) came to see them! The first couple days were the hardest because of the culture shock and the physical discomfort. Imagine a 92 degree, 100% humidity jungle night, with 9 girls in one room on the floor and wearing socks, long pants and a long sleeve shirt t
o avoid mosquito bites—and add three spiders of 3 inch diameter on the walls! Then try to sleep. For a Colorado suburban girl who complained when my house reached 78ยบ, I was way out of my element. The second night I even questioned why I decided to come to Africa and thought it was the worst decision of my life. But that quickly changed after the days at the work site. I’ve never been a kid person…ever…but my heart melted the minute the village kids ran out of their huts to greet us. When I saw them wearing the same shirt each day with stains and holes and dirt everywhere, but still watched them laugh and smile
and take care of each other like family, I realized that experiencing life there was not about how sweaty we were at night or how I looked into the eyes of the fish on my plate I was supposed to eat or counting the hundreds of insect bites on our bodies. Life in the village was the epitome of joy, an example of true happiness even without all the materials we surround ourselves with here at home.In The Tempest by William Shakespeare, the pursuit of happiness results in disaster through an attempt to regain power. Prospero tortures his brother and other conspirators through the utilization of enslavement of creatures. Although, in the end, he justifies the actions against him, Prospero still lacks happiness in the power he desires. He claims he is helpless, lacking authority and without family—ultimately succumbed to the utter will of nature.
Sophocles also addresses the pursuit of happiness through the turmoil in Oedipus Rex. However, “happiness” Oedipus strives for is because of his family. His humiliation for his deeds causes him to gauge out his eyes. Yet in sacrifice, he tries to retain what happiness is possible for his children.
Thrown back into this culture, I realize that happiness differs from pleasure and especially instant gratification. Beauty fades, strength diminishes, colors dull and even talents can be plucked away in an instant. The importance of bliss and the pursuit of individual interests develop a happiness that, as I continue to discover, alters with age.
