Oklahoma finishes low in about every ranking with other states, so it’s no surprise in the recent happy ranking that Oklahomans finished 43 out of 50.

It’s not our fault. All these rankings that tell us how bad we’re doing make us sad.

If researchers found something other to do beside rank states according to their incomes, qualities of life, prison populations, numbers of residents without health insurance, educations and happiness levels, maybe us Oklahomans could say, “Yes, I think I’m happy,” and that would be true because we wouldn’t know any better.

Despite contrary advice from sages, there can be value in ignorance.

That’s the way it was when I was growing up. My mother said life wasn’t about happiness.

She said, “I don’t make you go to church to be happy. I make you go to church to be a better person.”

She said, “I don’t send you to school to be happy. I send you to school to learn.”

She said, “I’m not sending you outside to butcher those chickens, hoe the garden, clean out the barn, mow the lawn, trim the hedges, paint the house, and dig up dandelions so you can be happy. I’m making you do those things so you’ll know the value of work.”

My mother was old school. She didn’t believe in happiness. If something made you smile, it had little value. If something made you sweat, groan and suffer, God was in it.

I’m an American, but I didn’t grow up believing in the pursuit of happiness. I still don’t believe in it. Where did that come from anyway?

Oh, yeah, Thomas Jefferson. He had time to pursue happiness. When he turned 14, he inherited 5,000 acres and dozens of slaves. He went to college at 16.

Jefferson knew about the pursuit of happiness. Other people did his farming while he studied Latin, Greek and French; read Locke, Bacon and Newton; played the violin; and dallied with a slave woman. I’m not knocking Jefferson. I can appreciate his place in history, but mostly, he was a product of his time.

We know when he wrote “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” he didn’t mean everyone, just white males with property. He didn’t even want free blacks carrying U.S. mail.

What if Jefferson walked into a post office today and saw them behind the counters?

All of our forefathers would be surprised to see what we’ve done with happiness.

Today we believe everyone has an inalienable right to happiness. But in the 1700s, they understood that only a few can be free and happy. The rest have to support the free and happy.

It doesn’t matter what our forefathers thought about government, whether it should be capitalistic or socialistic or a blend of the two, which is a big argument today. Most people are not free and happy under one or the other. Both are based on greed and strive for materialism. The only difference between them are the few who end up free, happy and dallying around — corporations or the state.

My mother was right. Most of us aren’t supposed to be happy.

So I don’t put much stock in this latest ranking, the one about which states are the most happy. I just think Oklahomans have it right. We’re No. 43 — hurray.

We know life isn’t about happiness.



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