In today’s society, people have a different view on happiness or success. Sometimes people tend to mix them up but they are and aren’t the same. For example, Bill Gates has all the money in the world but he could be unhappy. Money can’t buy happiness because that is something you must pursue and achieve, not buy. It is important for writers/artists/people to call attention to the difficulty for individuals to have the freedom to define and pursue happiness or success as they see fit regardless of their background.
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main character named Jay Gatsby has amassed a fortune through his business. He throws lavish and extravagant parties every weekend and has everything anyone could ask for. But he still finds himself unhappy and incomplete. It isn’t until the main character, Nick Carraway finds out about Gatsby’s past and pieces everything together that he finds out that what he truly wants is to be reunited with the love of his life, Daisy. Nick finds out that,”Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald, 78), and he threw all the parties in the hopes that one night she would walk in. Everything Gatsby owns or has done was in the attempt to get back together with Daisy, everything was in the pursuit of his own happiness. It was of great importance for Fitzgerald to show Gatsby define his happiness and pursue it even if he came from a poor family.
While doing research on Logic for my person poem I learned that while he was growing up he lived in poverty and on government aid. When he grew up he started to get into making music and rapping. After a few years, he finally got signed to Def Jam and started to move up in the rap industry. It was so important that Logic shares his life story because if he had never followed his passion, even he said that he could’ve been either in jail or shot. Considering what most rappers say about success, Logic has a unique view on it. From Logic’s point of view he says in the song Young Jedi, “Money can’t buy happiness, but that shit can support it / Cause what’s a family of five if you can’t even afford it”, and this makes complete sense because growing up his parents were both poor and couldn’t provide for him or his family. He talks about how his family used food stamps and the inability to pay bills. So what he’s really trying to say is what the point of having a family if you can’t even put food on the table and a roof over their heads. It was important for Logic to say this because knows from experience how important it is to pursue your passion and along with that having money doesn’t mean you’re happy. But it can help you be happy by supporting the things that make it possible for that to happen.
Another book we have read this semester is Death of A Salesman by Arthur Miller. Willy, the father of Biff and Happy, is a failing traveling salesman. As a young man, he met an old man named Dave Singleman who was also a salesman. Dave made all the sales he needed to from the comfort of his own home. After chasing after that ideal life without success he forced his dream onto his son Willy. Willy didn’t want to disappoint his father but Biff wasn’t suited for the life of a salesman as he said before, “Well I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up…To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off” (Miller, 22). It was crucial for Miller to show how Biff worked towards a dream that wasn’t his to start so that he could find out what he truly wanted from life by himself.
It is important for writers/artists/people to call attention to the difficulty for individuals to have the freedom to define and pursue happiness or success as they see fit regardless of their background. Happiness and success can be whatever you want it to be. It can be making a lot of money or it can be winning something. Regardless of what it is, it’s important for you to find what makes you happy and hold on to it for dear life.