It is Better to be Alive

I'd like to start writing about happiness by examining the attitude of: "be happy because you are alive".

In other words, just the fact you are alive should make you happy.

I have encountered this idea several times in my life - one of the first times was as a younger teenager, watching the 1987 movie "Full Metal Jacket".

Full Metal Jacket is an intense movie, and I especially like that it launched the career of R. Lee Ermey.

One scene in Full Metal Jacket that sticks in my memory takes place soon after the main character (Private "Joker") arrives in Vietnam in the late 1960s. He is a war reporter, and he witnesses a mass burial - a burial of dozens of civilians caught in the war's crossfire. The bodies are dumped into a shallow grave and are covered with a white powder, presumably lye.

Upon witnessing all these dead civilians, and how their bodies are being put into the ground, Joker observes (in a voice-over):

"The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive."

My interpretation of Joker's line is that it doesn't matter what the dead know: it is always better to be alive than dead.

This statement, then, is one of the elements of why I think a person should be happy. Let's call it Rule Number One. (Where the Rules are in no particular order.)

1. It is Better to be Alive

Be happy because you are alive, and not dead.