Happiness is only REAL when ...

In today’s society the question of happiness is defined by how much you have. It’s defined by things. Everyone is trying to keep up with the Jones’.  It is all about who has the bigger house and the fanciest car. Since the beginning of time people have based their happiness on materialistic things. They believe in their heart that if they get that huge diamond ring or those new golf clubs that they will be happier because of it. They don’t realize that it isn’t the things that we have that make us happier. They don’t realize that things are just things. They become consumed with this idea that if they have people will respect them and in turn they will be better off because of it. I admit that I’ve felt the same way. If only I got that cool sport car I know I will be so much happier and when I got it I wasn’t happier having it.

            This idea of materialist satire is more closely examined in the book East, West by Salman Rushdie’s short story “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers.”  The book sets a scene where everyone in it is consumed with materialistic things. Everything is for sale and they believe that the more you have the happier you will be. (87)  It’s quite hilarious and ridiculous because literally everything is for sale. They have auctioned off the “Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty, the Alphs, the Sphinx” people have gone as far as to sell “wives and purchase husbands” even human souls are for sale in this world. (99, 98) We then meet the narrator of the story. It is a man that is longs for his past. He longs for his ex lover. He knows the only way he can get there is by buying ruby slippers. This slippers have the power to take someone back to their past, to what ever time they choose.

He went to the auction and the famed ruby slippers are up for auction. Everyone has their eyes on them. Everyone wants them. But it doesn’t matter because the narrator will do anything to get them. Standing there bidding everything he owns he realizes he doesn’t need these slippers. He realizes that these slippers can not bring him happiness or make his lover Gale returns to him. Instead of continuing to bid he walks away. He goes home and he goes to bed. The next day he wakes up a new man. He is refreshed and worries free. I feel that his enlightenment caused him to look at life differently. He realized that “things” could not make him happy and in doing so I feel that he discovered what happiness really was.

Having the newest thing that our fast paced society has to offer is cool but does it really make us happy. When it comes down to it I don’t think that it does. Materialistic things come and go, how can happiness be associated with that. I believe that happiness is only real when it is shared with the people you love.