What Price Happiness?

These are troubling times, my friends, and made more so by the ease with which society is accepting the harshness and casual cruelties being meted out in their name.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't believe for a single second that people are, by and large, malicious or unfeeling. And I'm certainly no tree hugger type, living a morally irreproachable life. I just think it's easy for people to ignore the harm caused if they are not the ones directly dealing the blows.

We want our consumer goods mass produced and easily affordable, all the while ignoring both the unemployment and devastated manufacturing industries at home and the appalling working conditions and pitiful wages abroad.

We want our foods cheap and easy, neglecting to think about animal welfare, exploited migrant work forces or even the potential health risks.

We want our welfare system cleared of fraudulent claims, totally ignoring that the percentage being cut is far greater than that being fraudulently claimed, meaning that some of our most needy and vulnerable are becoming unwilling sacrifices.

Yet it's so easy to ignore these painful truths, to allow our rose tinted glasses to block these dirty realities from our conscious minds and go about our daily lives. After all, we're good people, we're not the ones with blood on our hands.....are we?

I don't know about you, but it leaves me wondering, isn't there a better way? Just how much of our compassion and humanity are we willing to sacrifice for what we want? What price would we pay for happiness?