With so much love and good in this world, sometimes I wonder how we can be sad. The other day, I put on Hulu to pass the time and it all made sense.

I needed an hour to kill. Too tired to read, write, or exercise. Watching mindless TV seemed like an obvious answer. During a commercial break, the stars aligned. In this order, there was a dating site commercial, followed by a vodka one, and closing out the commercial break would be a hotel booking website. Love, drugs, and travel.

After, I was left with the thought – no wonder we all act the way we do. The compulsive buying. Settling in a relationship due to fear of loneliness. Hiding pain behind a bottle. Building debt with another vacation.

I, too, felt these were the solutions to my happiness for a long time. It never worked. When I look back, my happiest moments weren’t bought or forced. They were lived, unplanned & unannounced.

The world around us is all trying to eat at our emotions, eat at what triggers us. To get us to buy happiness as if that was possible.

Instead of trying to purchase happiness, stop and start listening to your heart. Do you hate your job? What would you prefer to do? Can you turn that into a hobby? And later money? What interests you? Books? Join a book club. That future S/O could be doing the same thing! And on and on. There is so much you can do other than cope.

With that, I leave you with the words of John Prine – “Blow up your TV.”