Take arms, but by that I mean each other’s

From a crisis of identity, to a crisis of happiness.

As it was outlined in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, marketing shaped female identity in the 50’s. Barraged by ads about hair products, makeup, clothing, dishwashers, washing machines, all the things a woman was supposed to care about, women were led into the image of perfect femininity so graciously created for them by the men dangling in front of them a false sense of person-hood.

A century before women rebelled against the written law of a woman’s place, of a strictly biological existence, meant for male pleasure and child bearing. Half a century later, men suckling at the nipple of capitalism figured out how to market this very ideal, how to tell a woman what she wanted, shaming her for being anything other than, and benefiting from her subservience.

Now again, over half a century later, we find ourselves imprisoned by the mental fetters inflicted upon us by 24 hour access to how fucked up the world is and how it’s your responsibility to be happy despite it.

Messages of the world being available to you, shrouded by cautionary tales of venturing out into it.

It’s not safe, but you can do anything you want.

It’s not safe, but you can be anything you want to be.

It’s not safe, but you can go anywhere you want to go.

We are inundated by tragedy.

So what does one have to do but recoil into a false sense of security, convincing oneself it equates to happiness.

Mass marketing of tragedy, news to make you feel afraid, while simultaneously shaming you for not doing enough, not caring enough. All the while, pedaling self-help and homegrown happiness.

Drink this, eat that, take these, wear those, meditate, journal, do yoga, walk outside and you’ll be happy. Happiness is what you want because the world is a big scary place and consuming commercialized contentment is really all you can do as an individual. 

You must care about (and therefore worry about) everything: the planet, a woman’s right to choose, LGBTQ+ rights, global affairs, healthcare, refugees, equal pay, systemic racism, the list goes on and on. You must feel compelled to do something, anything, for all of it, yet are unable to move, make a decision, go after something, because anxiety and unrest seep through the minds of a generation bombarded by atrocity.

Women traveled 50 miles to hear Cady Stanton speak when they were so dissatisfied by a lack of individualism and autonomy, yet now, with all the information and all the ways to help available at our fingertips, apathy runs rampant.

It’s overwhelming, truly, all there is for one to do to retain some sense of sanity and safety is to slice out a corner of life and watch everything else happen around them, living in a state of contained freedom.

The ability to do anything, be anything, go anywhere, yet idly watching in awe as others dare to do so for themselves in a world full of risk.

The dissonance that comes from the longing to fulfill the intrinsic desire of self-actualization, confined to operate within artificial zones of safety, paralyzed by the messages of fear.

But people should not be forced to carve out safe zones in which they are free to exist, the world should be a place in which everyone is free to exist.

This only becomes a reality if we dare to ignore the messages aimed at keeping us too afraid, too comfortable with the safety we think we have, too detached from the world around us and unable to fathom that it can be better.

Maybe it’s not possible to care about and do something about everything all at once, but maybe one person caring about one thing and attempting to do something about it is enough to kick-start the global change of which our world is so desperately in need.

Take charge of your life. Own your world. Because it is your world, and it is mine, and it is all of ours. It is big and it is beautiful and it is scary when the darkness seems to have enveloped the light, but the light remains. It remains in every person that desires something better for someone else.

Maybe happiness isn’t the end goal, maybe happiness is a byproduct.

A byproduct of realizing your capacity for good; of leaving one person, or one place, a little bit better off than before because you had the means to do something to help and you did.

You had the courage to care and you did.

So I do not wish you happiness, I wish you courage.

Be brave in a world that wants to incapacitate you with fear.

Lead with courage and love in your heart and find that happiness will follow.

Because when the world is a big scary place, it’s really all that one can do.