The Man Who Discovered Happiness

The entire world knows of him. The most popular name since Einstein. It is miraculous how he could do what he did. All discoveries and inventions are minor in comparison, since he was able to make just about the entire world happy.

It didn’t take long either since once he announced his discoveries and traveled the world speaking about what he discovered, everyone’s brain lit up. The darkness was forever lifted. People got it.

The unifying thing about humans is not a single one does not want to be happy. The singular shared goal of all human life is happiness. We seek it out in so many different ways. It is what every human being aspires towards so once he was able to figure out how people could actually be happy all the time, it caught like a fire in a dry forest.

 

His name was Joe Ollman. Obviously he has been dead for some time now, but his discovery has still to this day changed the lives of everyone on planet earth. Even though we all live indoors now and are continually on-line, we have all found a happiness that is far greater than any kind of happiness experienced by humans who were off-line and went outdoors. Psychotherapy, psychiatry, life-coaches, self-help gurus, spiritual gurus, all of these professions are a thing of the past. No longer needed. In school I read about how many, many, many years ago, these were the most popular professions. They were everywhere and bookstores were filled with self-help and psychology books written by these people. Not any more. None of them exits today, since everyone is happy.

Joe Ollman. This is a name which will never be forgotten as long as humans are around. You can ask anyone, even children who Joe Ollman was and they will tell you the man who discovered happiness. And his discovery was not even that difficult. It is strange that authentic happiness eluded humans for so long. Joe Ollman just made it very easy for everyone to understand and implement it.

 

For those of you who are interested, Ollman’s Theory of Happiness is: To be happy is the absence of negative thought. Pretty simple, right? That as long as a person has negative thoughts they will not be able to be happy. In order to be happy a person must be able to eradicate all negative thinking. Sounds simple but not so easy. The genius of Joe Ollman was that he made it easy.

When Joe Ollman was alive he lived in a society that created deep unhappiness. The society that Ollman lived in was so dysfunctional that the vast majority of citizens had to take pills to make them feel better and more functional in what he called “The Sick Society.” Can you believe that? Society was at one time so dysfunctional and unhealthy that people had to take a pill, which generated more serotonin in their brain chemistry so that they could function better in that society. Even though it was over sixty years ago since things have really changed it still surprises me that this is how things once were.

People were continually worried about having enough money and what other people thought of them. People distracted themselves with things that caused them to feel even more empty inside. The routine and monotony in people’s lives caused them to live with this empty feeling inside, which drove them into states of deep anger and depression. Wow. Everyone was stressed out since surviving in The Sick Society caused a person to have to do a lot of things that they did not want to do. People had to pretend to be happy about working at jobs that they did not feel happy at. Everyone was disconnected from one another. No real relationships were able to be sustained in this harsh climate of anger, addiction, worry and depression. People pursued happiness but could never find it because their heads were filled with negative thoughts and people spent most of their time lost inside their heads. Fear prevented almost everyone from living the life that they wanted to really live. People were committing suicide and violent crimes everywhere. Men interested in power and money ran the world and the masses were much too afraid to rise up against the state. The people were powerless. They had no choice but to submit. It was pure madness. The only thing that could help this situation were psychiatric pills. It was the real Dark Age.

 

Joe Ollamn is a global hero because he is single-handedly responsible for bringing people out of these dark ages. He basically rescued everyone from the darkness and brought almost everyone out into the light. All with his very simple Theory Of Happiness. Joe Ollman was also once a very depressed and negative man. He admitted to often thinking about suicide and then he realized that there could be an alternative way. He did not have to physically die as much as he needed to psychologically change. Ollman realized that he needed to eradicate negative thoughts.

Ollman started practicing Mindfulness meditation intensively so that he could develop the awareness needed to know when he was starting to have negative thoughts and feelings. “When the emptiness and darkness was starting to creep in,” he often said. Once he was able to have this awareness he could catch it and turn the thoughts and feelings into something positive before the negativity snowballed into a miserable state. The importance of awareness in being a happy person was not discovered by Ollman but it was really brought into the mainstream by him. Today most people practice mindfulness meditation and it is because humans are much more aware that they are able to subvert negativity the moment it arises.

Ollman’s Theory Of Happiness stresses that if a person wants to be happy they must be able to not dwell in their heads. That dwelling or ruminating in thought is unhappiness. In order to avoid this a person must engage in distractions that allow them to feel engaged, focused and better about themselves when finished with the distractions. People just needed to become better able at choosing more quality distractions for themselves rather than just taking what is being offered by the highest bidder. It is because of Ollman’s discovery that Hollywood, Netflix, HBO, social media, cable television, most forms of advertising, Amazon Prime are now things of the past. Corporations that created and profited off of human misery are now gone! People now actually live quality lives. Who would have ever thought? All because of one man.

 

Ollman once said in a YouTube interview, “If human beings want to be happy they must be able to remain present and aware. It is so crucial that people are present and engaged in their lives in a carefree kind of way. If a person wants to be happy they must be carefree because if they are not stress and worry and depression will quickly rise up. The Sick Society did not allow people to be carefree. Everyone was worried and stressed out all the time and this is why unhappiness was such an epidemic. If people really want happiness it is so important that they are able to live in  a carefree way. Moment by moment, day by day without worrying about the future or thinking about the past. When a person is truly happy they are fully in the moment. They are fully content and engaged in the moment without a care in the world. The moment a person is no longer carefree, unhappiness sets in. The thing about humans is that we do have the ability to be carefree. We just need to exercise this ability or potential more regularly through mindfulness meditation practice.”

This was once of the most viewed videos in YouTube history and it is where Ollamn’s Theory of Happiness was presented to the world. Einstein wrote books and papers but it is interesting how things change. Ollman wrote no books or papers but presented his discoveries through YouTube videos. No one reads books anymore. Everyone just watches YouTube videos and Ollman was visionary enough to know that this would be the case one day. Ollman was such a genius and I am so grateful for his presence on planet earth. I do not know what the hell anyone would do without his Theory Of Happiness. We would all be taking pills and living in that dark and very sick society that almost caused Ollman to take his own life.

I am so happy the dark ages are now behind us.

*This is an essay written by a young girl for her online eighth grade Sociology class.

The Plastic Smile

 I did not do it because I am an unhappy man. Like everyone else I have my good days and bad ones, but would never agree that I am a miserable man. I just have a difficult time smiling. Smiling has never come easily for me. It has always felt forced, like I am pushing something uncomfortable off my face. As a child my father would always mimic the stern frown that I wore on my face. I couldn’t help it. He would call me the James Dean kid. I would try to explain to him that I was not unhappy, it was just what my face seemed to do.

When I first saw the ad for the plastic smile I was immediately intrigued. A Smile For All Those Who Find Smiling Impossible To Do! The ad said that people would have no idea that the smile was fake when you wore the plastic smile on your face. “Ok,” I thought. In a world that judges you based upon the look that you have on your face, the plastic smile seemed like it would be a good thing to have. I had been thinking about how if I just smiled more, if people thought that I was a happier man, then maybe my business would improve. I could be more successful. I decided to give the plastic smile a try.

I was surprised that it arrived on my doorstep a few days after ordering it. When I ordered the plastic smile the company said that we will have you smiling in no time, but I never thought that it would arrive so fast. I picked up the small cardboard box, brought it inside and immediately opened it up. The plastic smile was in a plastic wrapper. There was also what was called a “pen stick,” so you could match the smile with the color of your skin. There was also a full-page of illustrated instructions. I brought all of this into my bathroom and within a half an hour I had the plastic smile on my face.

It looked so real! I was in awe. I could move the smile from side to side, up and down with my own facial muscles. I could open and close the smile but I was impressed by how even when I was not smiling the smile always returned back into its original smiling shape. My facial muscles could be in the shape of a frown but I still had a bright, perfectly shaped smile on my face! This was fantastic. Finally, I could be a smiling man.

I immediately wanted to take my new smile out into the world. I wanted to see if it really worked. I decided to walk around the downtown area, which was close to my house. I walked down the street. I went into various stores. I ordered coffee at a local cafe. I could not believe how many people were smiling back at me. It seemed as if I was lighting people up as I walked by. People in cars, people in shops, people on bikes- all noticed and smiled at me. A few seemed to take offense to my smile by looking the other way or giving me a “fuck you” look, but for the most part the plastic smile seemed to change everything. The vast majority of people seemed to become happier in my presence!

This was a revelation for me because up until this point I had never experienced this before. Normally, people respond to me in a standoffish matter. It is not that I upset others or depress them but I do not really seem able to change their mood. My interactions with others are relatively mundane and unanimated and this probably has something to do with the lack of a smile on my face. With this plastic smile on my face people seemed to immediately light up when they saw me. A smile took shape on their faces as well. That day I saw more teeth than I had ever seen in my life. I saw white teeth and brown teeth, broken teeth and perfectly shaped teeth, bent teeth and straight teeth. When people smile their teeth come out to say “hi.”

Having all of these people smile at me really lifted my mood. I was feeling great and could not wait to go back to work. I had no doubt that this plastic smile was going to improve my business. My wife was a bit disturbed by the plastic smile but it made her smile more so she was supportive of my wearing the plastic smile wherever I went. It was not until the third day of wearing the plastic smile that I became aware that not only was it a cheaply made product, but that something such as a permanent smile upon my face was too good to be true.

I work as a psychotherapist and I did notice that all of my clients were leaving my office with smiles on their faces. They seemed to feel much better and happier than their therapy sessions with me in the past. Some clients even pointed out that I seemed so much happier. “What do you mean, do I normally seem unhappy?” I asked. My clients would tell me that they were just not used to seeing me with such a big smile on my face. They felt happy for me that things were going well in my life and it was through being able to be happy for someone else’s good fortune that they themselves were able to feel better than they had in a long time. Who would have ever thought that the key to mental health was as simple as being able to stop thinking of just yourself and being able to be happy for someone else.

After the second day of wearing the plastic smile, my business started to pick up. Some of my clients were referring their friends to me. I received several phone calls from people wanting to get an appointment with me. The plastic smile was actually working! But then on the third day some thing really unfortunate began to happen. The plastic smile started falling off my face. I would be in the middle of a session with a client and the smile would fall into my lap. As you can imagine this was incredibly disturbing for my clients. They were all terrified and confused when it happened. “What the fuck!” they would yell out. Some even jumped up into the air and ran out of the room.

I tried to explain what was going on. I believe in that cliché saying that honesty is the best policy, so I told my clients that I ordered the plastic smile on-line in order to appear happier. I explained to all of them that I had always had a difficult time smiling. Smiling felt uncomfortable for me and I was concerned that it was having a negative effect on my ability as a therapist. Some of my clients understood and felt empathy but others were very disturbed and left my office without paying. I presume that I will never hear from these clients ever again. I just hope they do not give me a negative review on Yelp.

I wrote to the plastic smile company and told them about what was happening. They wrote back and told me that they were sorry that this was occurring but that in their disclaimer it was written that they could take no responsibility for how long the plastic smile would stick on to a persons face. When I read some reviews of the plastic smile I was surprised to see that a lot of people had the same problem that I did. One person even wrote that he lost a woman that he was in love with because of the plastic smile. He wrote:

When I first met her she loved my smile. My smile was what attracted her to me. I had never been loved by a woman like this in my life. That first week with her was pure bliss. I felt so happy and we were making plans to spend the rest of our lives together. But when the plastic smile fell off my face in the middle of lunch one day she was terrified. She screamed and almost had a full on seizure. I could not calm her down and everyone in the restaurant was looking at us. She ran out and I will never hear from her again. My life is over. Thanks plastic smile.

I do not know why I neglected to read these reviews before ordering the product. I suppose that I was so excited by the idea of being able to smile all the time that I did not want to have my hope diminished by any negative reviews. I am just sorry that I did not take a moment to make a more sober decision, because it is even harder for me to smile now than it was before. My business is in a rut again and I just want to stay home all day. Now I know that a smile is the answer to so many of my problems but I just can not do it. If only I could. If only it was as easy as that plastic smile was.