Murder Potato

Queen Isadora and her daughter Princess Lysandra, stood at the back of the grand ballroom, watching as the prince made his announcement. They had known it was coming, but that didn't make it any easier to bear.

"Good people of Palantina," the prince said, his voice ringing out across the room. "It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that my engagement to Princess Lysandra is to be annulled."

There was a murmur of shock and surprise from the assembled guests, but the Queen and her daughter remained composed. They had known that the prince was weak-willed, easily swayed by the opinions of others. They had counted on it, in fact. 

Despite being neighbouring kingdoms, the largest difference between the Kingdom of Palantina and the Queendom of Idoria was in their governance. Although the rulers of both kingdoms had the final say, Queen Isadora took this to mind much more than acting king, Prince Alexander.

"As you are all aware," the prince continued, "there have been certain... issues that have arisen in the course of our engagement. Issues that cannot be overcome."

Isadora felt her anger rising. "Issues," she muttered to Lysandra. "He means he's been persuaded by those meddling advisors of his to break our alliance."

Lysandra nodded, her eyes glittering with fury and her hands shaking in fists. "They will pay for this," she muttered. "They will pay dearly."

The prince went into detail as to the reasons for disbanding their engagement, but Isadora had stopped listening. All she could think about was the years of planning that had gone into this alliance, the sacrifices she had made to ensure that her daughter would be queen. Now, it was as if someone had pulled the rug straight under her. She knew that the prince was weak willed but never expected him to make this decision. She was well aware of what people thought of her, a cruel and heartless tyrant and villainess. 

But she would not let the prince and his advisors have the last word. She swore she would find a way to regain her power, to make them all pay for what they had done. And she knew that Lysandra was thinking the same thing.

Lysandra scanned the ballroom. This was it, the official announcement that would sever any ties of intimacy between them. Although she was well aware this engagement came to fruition due to political reasons, she didn’t think it would also end due to political reasons. The corruption in Palantina’s court was high while Alexander was just too easily manipulated. Despite knowing this, Lysandra’s face struggled containing her fury as the crowd reacted with joyful looks and cheers.

How… dare they! Despite our long alliance and support, they still do not accept us.

As the prince finished his announcement, the Queen and her daughter turned on their heels and swept out of the ballroom, their heads held high, faces confident. They could not show weakness in the face of this setback.

What is happiness? "The state of being happy" according Oxford dictionary. VeryWellMind states that "happiness is an emotional state characterized by joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction." They also state that the balance of emotions as well as life satisfaction contribute greatly to one's happiness. Taking that into mind, we can now move onto the question: "Why can't everybody be happy?"

"Everyone..." let's only include living humans for now, because although being happy is something that we would like to extend to all of the planet, we are not sure whether certain animals have emotions nor can we be sure they interpret them in the same way we as live humans do. With that logic, perhaps we need to limit our database to only conscious humans. If one is unconscious, it is hard to say whether or not they are happy. Maybe we need to set an age range as well? But due to being potentially subjected of being ageist on top of humanocentristic, we'll leave the database as "Conscious living human beings who currently resides on earth".

So, "Why can't every conscious living human being who currently resides on earth be happy?" Maybe we need to look at the lack of happiness first. It's very obvious, especially for those who live in poverty. You don't have the resources to bring up your life satisfaction. Less than ideal living standards decrease the quality of life and in many cases, systems that were originally implemented to help those in need actually punish those who try to improve their situation. Many welfare traps, for example, refuse to give aid to people once they move past the earning range regardless of whether or not people can afford it. With this logic, it is more beneficial for those who live in poverty to continue receiving aid rather than actively work to remove themselves out of poverty. Poverty is only one aspect that decreases the quality of life and there are by far many other reasons why others may be unhappy. But for 10% of the world, this could be one of the reasons why they are unhappy. Therefore, we can establish that as long as poverty exists, the state for everyone to be happy is unlikely to occur.

A balance of emotions is needed for happiness. For those with mental illness, common ones including depression, anxiety, PSTD to name a few, this can be difficult. For someone like OP who has both depression and bipolar disorder, she probably knows how difficult it is for herself to maintain that balance, let alone the many others who also have that burden. As I have never seen the need or logic in getting medically diagnosed, I will not elaborate further on this subject.

But even for those without mental illness and are out of poverty, there's no guarantee that you will always be happy. Happiness is not the result of bouncing from one joy to the next, and there will definitely be times of difficulty and considerable discomfort. From a biological aspect, we are alive not to optimize happiness, but rather to allow the continuation of our species. We can also blame entropy for our lack of happiness, the universe is always moving towards a state of disorder, with forces working to ruin whatever we create.

Or perhaps we need to be thankful that we've managed to actually come this far as homo sapiens. Compared to a few million years ago when humans first appeared, our quality of life has improved by far since then. So even though it is highly unlikely for "everyone to be happy", it doesn't mean we as individuals can't be.

References used:

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-happiness-4869755 (Very-Well Mind, Happiness) https://youtu.be/D9N7QaIOkG8 (Ted-Ed, Poverty)

Hazel Dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius)

(Photo from Alamy)

Conservation Status- Least Concern

Habitat- Southern England

Size (Weight/Length)- 10 cm

Diet- Berries; Nuts; Seeds; Flowers; Insects

Cool Facts- The hazel dormouse is one of my favorite rodents and possibly the cutest mouse. These mice are right at home anywhere from woodland to backyard shrubs. Making a nest in the fall, hazel dormice gather nesting material and a variety of nuts to hoard throughout the cold winter. When they run out of food, they go into torpor. It is believed that they spend the majority of their lives sleeping rather than scurrying around. Sadly due to their ability to live alongside humans, people think of hazel dormice as pests. Pesticides, traps, and lack of protection in forests have caused their numbers to drop in recent years.

“A Richer You”, Mary Holm (just started)

“How to Make friends and influence people in the digital age”, Dale Carnegie (glanced at and plan to read during work breaks)