Disneyland, Happiness & Time

While Democrats were celebrating in Washington, I spent the day with three friends at Disneyland.  It was perhaps the perfect place to spend the day.  To be sure, we saw a handful of Obama T-shirts, but they were few and far between.  Most people were just having a good time, not focused so much on the transfer of power in Washington.

Well, they were all visiting the “happiest place on earth.”  And politics doesn’t always make us happy.  To be sure, Mr. Jefferson thought that governments were “instituted among Men” to secure our right to pursue happiness.  He didn’t say they were instituted to secure our happiness.  Perhaps, that’s because governments don’t do a good job of providing our happiness.   We must remember that they just protect our right to pursue it on our own.

And that’s where private organizations like Disneyland come in.

Every time I go to Disneyland is how little attention I pay to my watch when I’m wearing one.  All too often, it seems I’m constantly watching the clock, trying to get my reading/research done for my dissertation, to finish reading the blogs and otherwise checking the news in term to blog informatively.

But, at Disneyland, I’m just in the moment.  We all need such places.  Maybe that’s why it is the happiest place on earth.