Does not exist. I don’t believe in it. I’m not sure I ever have. I was betrayed early on in life and then again and once more, etc. I was a jaded kid who grew into a jaded adult. I never believed in happy endings like Cinderella:

It’s not like time stops after you ride into the sunset together. Even as a kid, I knew that the sun had to rise the next morning. Prince Charming will fart, snore, leave the toilet seat up and do all sorts of things to annoy Cinderella and she will get on his nerves, too. Who wants happily ever after anyway? If you don’t have hard times, you can’t appreciate the good.

Today’s prompt: “And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there?

Since I just squashed the concept of happily ever after under my boot heel, no, I’m not living it.

This is my left combat boot. There are many like it, including the right one, but this one is mine. My combat boot is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. It will crush fairy tale BULLSHIT.

I don’t believe it’s even possible to live happily ever after unless you are, say, cryogenically frozen right at a very happy moment, but that isn’t technically living. Same with zombies. Zombies aren’t technically alive. They are undead. Perhaps a lobotomy, plus lots of drugs is the way to go.

Cinderella is some right fucking bullshit. I really am not a fan of the Barbie/Disney Princess crap. Find a man, get married and live happily ever after in a big pink house as if that’s all it takes.

Those kind of role models lead to all sorts of disappointment later in life. The sooner little girls (and boys) realize that life is not fair, the better they will be able to cope with its inevitable disappointments. Now that I’ve killed the feminine mystique of childhood idols, let’s answer the question without the skewed happily ever after BULLSHIT.

Is it possible to choose a path, follow that path and be reasonably happy for a considerable period of time afterward while still experiencing life’s ups and downs?

Yes, it certainly is possible. Most people don’t though. Humans are constantly second guessing ourselves. If only I had gotten a degree in Physics instead of a degree in Pink Striped Bags, I would be a physicist instead of a plastic doll, etc. We all do it. We all wonder about what would have happened had we taken the left fork instead of the right. It’s what we do. It’s how we learn. We evaluate our behavior and act accordingly.

Am I happy with the weird circuitous path I’ve taken in life? Not so much. I regret not getting a college degree when I had a chance. I regret a lot of things actually, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about any of it now, so I try not to worry about it. I keep moving forward, sometimes at a laborious pace, other times, at breakneck speed.

We can’t do a damn thing to change the past. All we can do is try to change the future and try to be as happy as possible in the meantime. I think part of the way to be happy is to forget the past. I’ll let you know if I figure it out because I’m not there yet.

Maybe I should just get a lobotomy like Barbie.