Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster)

ALSO BY DAVE BARRY

FICTION

Insane City

Lunatics
(with Alan Zweibel)

The Bridge to Never Land
(with Ridley Pearson)

Peter and the Sword of Mercy
(with Ridley Pearson)

Science Fair
(with Ridley Pearson)

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
(with Ridley Pearson)

Cave of the Dark Wind
(with Ridley Pearson)

The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog

Escape from the Carnivale
(with Ridley Pearson)

Peter and the Shadow Thieves
(with Ridley Pearson)

Peter and the Starcatchers
(with Ridley Pearson)

Tricky Business

Big Trouble

NONFICTION

You Can Date Boys When You're 40

I'll Mature When I'm Dead

Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far)

Dave Barry's Money Secrets

Boogers Are My Beat

Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway

Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down

Dave Barry Turns 50

Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus

Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs

Dave Barry in Cyberspace

Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys

Dave Barry Is NOT Making This Up

Dave Barry Does Japan

Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need

Dave Barry Talks Back

Dave Barry Turns 40

Dave Barry Slept Here

Dave Barry's Greatest Hits

Homes and Other Black Holes

Dave Barry's Guide to Marriage and/or Sex

Dave Barry's Bad Habits

Claw Your Way to the Top

Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead

Babies and Other Hazards of Sex

The Taming of the Screw

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

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Copyright © 2015 by Dave Barry

Photo of Dave, Sophie and Beckham © 2014 by Seth Browarnik/WorldRedEye.com

Photo of Dave, Sophie and Beckham (with Dave's face superimposed) © 2014 by Seth Browarnik/WorldRedEye.com

Photo of French fans © 2014 by Dave Barry

Photo of Dave and Belgian fan © 2014 by Sophie Barry

Photo of Dave, Ridley and Tefft © 2014 by Wendy Kolls

Photo of Dave and his grandson © 2014 by Michelle Kauffman

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ISBN 978-1-101-63150-8

Also by Dave Barry

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

BITE ME, DAVID BECKHAM

A LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER AS SHE BECOMES ELIGIBLE FOR A FLORIDA LEARNER'S PERMIT (UNLESS I CAN GET THE LAW CHANGED)

THE REAL MAD MEN

IN WHICH WE LEARN TO LOVE BRAZIL, AND TRY TO HATE BELGIUM

CABLE NEWS IS ON IT

EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT HOME OWNERSHIP I LEARNED FROM JOHNNY CARSON

GOOGLE GLASS: A REVIEW. I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE, BUT I HAD TROUBLE READING IT

TO RUSSIA WITH RIDLEY: THE ADVENTURES OF CLOAK AND DAGGER

A LETTER TO MY GRANDSON

What makes us happy?

It's definitely not money. To quote the old saying that old people are always saying: “Money can't buy happiness.”

How very true that is.

Oh, you might
think
money would make you happy. But would it really? Let's say you inherited a billion dollars. You could have a private jet, live in a mansion with a swimming pool, drive a Maserati. You could drive your Maserati into your swimming pool if you felt like it. That's how rich you'd be.

But would all that money really make you happy? Would your family and friends really love you any more?

OK, they probably would, especially if you let them ride in your jet. And if they
didn't
love you more, you could afford to have them professionally whacked and get a whole new set of family and friends. People would
audition
to be your friend. I would be one of these people.

So apparently the old saying is wrong: Money
can
buy you happiness. The problem is, you need a really large quantity of it. You have to be one of those twenty-three-year-old Internet billionaires that everybody would like to punch in the mouth.

So most of us have to seek happiness in other ways. Tragically, some people turn to drugs or alcohol. This is a big mistake. I realize that the title of this book seems to suggest that you can achieve happiness by drinking beer, but that is of course a joke. Beer is not the answer. Sure, when your problems are getting you down, drinking beer might
temporarily
improve your mood. But what happens when the beer wears off? You're right back where you started, still stuck with all the same problems. Sooner or later, you're going to have to face the harsh truth:
You need more beer.

No! Strike that. The harsh truth is that happiness is an elusive thing. I speak from personal experience here. I should be a happy man. I have all the elements of a good life: a loving family, a nice home, a dog that doesn't pee indoors without a good reason. I have a full head of hair and several original teeth. I have no major health issues that I am aware of, thanks to a rigorous healthcare regimen of never getting within 200 yards of a known healthcare provider. I have a small group of really close male friends with whom I am not in touch because we are males, but I know I can count on them if I ever really need them, assuming they are still alive.

And if all of that isn't enough, I've had a long and rewarding career that consists of being paid to write pretty much any random idiot thing I want. You can put suspenders on a salamander, but it still won't make waffles. See what I mean? That sentence makes absolutely no sense, but
I got paid to write it
. It's printed right here in a published book! Unless you're a high-ranking federal official, there is no way you can do anything this useless and still have a job.

So I have been blessed with many blessings. I should be happy. And I am, sort of. But I can't escape the nagging feeling that I'm not
really
happy, at least not the way I was when I was young and carefree and basically an idiot.

I especially have this feeling when it's my turn to drive the soccer practice car pool for my daughter, Sophie, and some of her teammates. This involves spending up to an hour in a confined space with a group of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old girls, all high school freshmen, listening to them discuss the concerns that girls of that age have, such as racism, bullying and global climate change.

I am of course kidding. Here are the top ten concerns of my daughter and her friends, based on their car pool conversations:

1. Boys.
   
2. The hideous totally unwarranted cruelty of high school teachers.
   
3. What this one boy did in this one class OMG.
   
4. Some video on some Internet thing that is HILARIOUS.
   
5. Hair.
   

6-10.  Boys.

All of the girls discuss all of these topics simultaneously at high volume while at the same time (they are excellent multi-taskers) thumbing away on their phones and listening to the radio, which is cranked way up so they can hear it over the noise they're making.

So they're very loud. They're spooking cattle as far away as Scotland. But here's the thing: It's a
happy
noise. These girls are the happiest people I know.
Everything
makes them laugh. They love
everything
, except the things they hate, and they love hating those things. They literally cannot contain their happiness: It explodes from them constantly in shrieks and shouts, enveloping them in a loud cloud of pure joy. It gets even louder when the radio plays their favorite song—which is basically every song—and they all sing joyfully along at the top of their lungs. For example, recently, as I was driving them to practice, the girls—most of these are good Catholic girls who attend Catholic school, where they receive religious instruction—suddenly, in unison, began belting out these lyrics:

My anaconda don't want none unless you GOT BUNS, HON!

This is the chorus to a song called “Anaconda,” in which a man—Sir Mix-a-Lot—is declaring his fondness for large buttocks on women. The “anaconda” refers to one of his body parts. (Hint: Not his pancreas.)

I know what you're thinking: Why did I let the girls listen to such an inappropriate song? Why didn't I change the station? My excuses are:

1. It took me a while to figure out that the song was not about an actual anaconda.
   
2. If I changed the station, odds are that the new station would also be playing “Anaconda,” or another song that was just as inappropriate. As far as I can tell from driving the car pool, all radio stations play the same two inappropriate songs in heavy rotation.
   
3. Young people have been listening to inappropriate songs on the radio for centuries, dating back to when I was a young person and we listened to “Louie Louie,” which everybody knew had dirty words, although nobody knew exactly what they were:
   

Louie Louie

[Something unintelligible but supposedly obscene]

Yi yi yi yi!

But getting back to happiness: I envy my daughter and her friends. I wish I could be as happy as they are, although I wouldn't want to have to go back to high school and deal with acne and the cosine again. I want to be happy AND be a grown-up, if that's possible. But as I say, happiness is elusive.

Which brings us to this book. It's a group of essays on a variety of topics. They may seem pretty random, but in fact there's an underlying theme, which is happiness. There's an essay about my parents' generation, which I believe somehow managed to be happier than mine, which was
not
supposed to happen. There's a letter to my grandson, imparting wisdom that I hope will enable him to have a happy and fulfilling life, or at least keep him from unnecessarily refrigerating his condiments. There's an essay on whether adopting modern technology—specifically Google Glass—can bring happiness (SPOILER ALERT: No). There's an essay on the never-ending funfest that is cable TV news, and one on David Beckham, who makes many people happy, but not me. There are reports on my trips to Brazil, which is basically a happy place, and Russia, which might be, but I had no idea what anybody was saying. There's some advice for my daughter as she reaches the age when she can legally drive in Florida, which makes her happy, although it terrifies me. And there's an essay on home ownership, which is the American dream, and a guaranteed way to not achieve happiness.

So that's the book. I hope you like it. I hope it makes you happy.

If not, there's always beer.