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Don't worry, be happy. Remember that song? Was it Bob Marley or Bobby McFerrin who wrote those lyrics? Both have been given credit. As I thought about this myth of a secret to happiness, that song popped into my mind. I thought, is that the "secret" not to worry? It certainly makes sense. When we worry, we get frown lines, when we are carefree and having fun, we get laugh lines. These lines go upward for one and downward for the other.

For the most part children worry less than adults, and look at their precious little faces compared to ours! Maybe its not just the sun or the wind or lack of vitamins that makes us age so quickly. Maybe its that we lose the ability to make the best of whatever we are handed and just be happy with that. Come to think of it, it was about the time I really started worrying about my looks and my weight and my public image that I started the downhill journey to growing old. That was just as a teenager! When you worry you control your facial features one way or the other, you may be doing your best even to look happy when your not; but your worried about not fitting in. Have you ever done that?! Faked a smile or a laugh at a joke you find stupid because the person telling it builds it up like its a knee slapping, gut wrenching, hilarius joke. I hate doing that! I'd almost rather look at the person and say, "I don't get why you think that's so funny. I get the joke but its not that funny to me. Instead I worry about how that would make the person feel if I said that, or how others would think of me, and I get this half assed tooth grindy grin and make a noise that sounds less like a laugh than a pained pair of grunts squeezed as tightly together as my upper and lower molars at that same moment, to sound like a laugh. Oh, I hate when I do that. I usually avoid people who sit and tell one dumb blond joke, or one racial joke, or basically a bunch of bad jokes in a row; because I'd rather do anything but worry that I'm not as happy to hear these stupid one liners as the rest of the crowd, so much so, that I feel I need to ACT like I am. That tells me that the opposite of happy is not sad, its worry.

Worry and happy are about as compatible as oil and water. So, its not a secret. It's a well known song, one that's gotten stuck in all of our heads at least one time since we first heard it. "Don't worry be happy!" So simple, it would be ludicrous to call it a secret!

If there is a secret to happiness; its only to figure out how to not worry so much. The song says expect trouble but don't worry and make it double, be happy!

REFERENCE:

Don't Worry Be Happy (song lyrics) McFerrin, Bobby

http://www.lyricsondemand .com/onehitwonders/dontworrybe happylyrics.html

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