If you find yourself reading my post today, you might wonder what being happy has to do with the Brooklyn Bridge. Well, just hold on and I will lay it all out for you. First, let me tell you a story.
A long long time ago, there was a guy named George C. Parker. Parker lived from 1860 to about 1937 according to Wikipedia and he was quite possibly one of the most well known con men of his generation.
The main crux of his scam was to sell some of New York Cities most famous public landmarks to ill informed and unwary immigrants who had just arrived in the United States. Most notably, the Brooklyn Bridge which he sold several times over to different people.
Unfortunately, Parker's misdeeds caught up with him and he ended up dying in Sing Sing Prison in New York.
Despite that, he continues to live on in infamy and from his exploits the phrase was coined:
"If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you"
As time has passed, people who are familiar with the phrase know that it's synonymous with people who are easily fooled or gullible.
I've mentioned before that I grew up in a pretty sheltered home. We weren't Amish or Mennonite or anything like that, but we didn't get exposed to a lot of the more unsavory things this world has to offer. As I grew older, I picked up some stuff here and there on my own, but looking back I was still pretty "green".
My sister and I both did fairly well in school. I wasn't at the top of my class or anything, but I got good grades and I graduated somewhere in the top 20%. School wasn't hard, but I did have to work a bit to keep my grades at an acceptable level for my parents. My sister on the other hand always had her head buried in a book. When I would want her to come outside and play she would rather be reading.
As a result, my sister is rather "book smart", but I wouldn't consider her "street smart". She might contest that, but deep down she probably knows it's true.
I was thinking back recently to the general naivety we had when we were younger and what we know of the world today, and I found myself longing for that time when I was basically clueless. I think we can all agree there is a lot of crappy stuff happening in the world today. The further you dig into it the more disgusted you get.
If I think back really hard I can remember a time when I wasn't so cynical, a time when I had a bit more hope for the future and the world I lived in. I'm not saying my life is crappy (far from it), but it's not too hard to look around and see the flaws.
I honestly think a lot of the turn for me happened when I started working retail. Those three years as a salesman at Radio Shack showed me a side of people that I never knew existed before. To say it was eye opening would be an understatement.
Inevitably, my reminiscing to a time when I was less jaded got me thinking about the idea of happiness. I have a friend who purposely chooses not to watch the news or keep up with basically any current events in the world. I wouldn't say she is happier than me (due to other reasons), but sometimes her ignorance about the ugliness that is happening in the world is almost enviable.
Ultimately, that led me down this thought path:
"Is it better to be dumb and happy than informed and... miserable?"
I would venture to guess there are a quite a few people in this world who have absolutely zero clue (in more ways than one), but they are probably happier than any of us may ever be in our entire lives. I'm not trying to guess at what you life is like. It's just a thought that occured to me and the main reason I felt this post fit well into the #reflections community started by 
I'll be the first to admit, I don't have any answers for you today, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I think it's safe to say there are aspects of this world that we all wish didn't exist or at the very least we were able to ignore.
Is that healthy though? Ignoring it doesn't make it go away, but once you life that veil, can you go on living pretending you don't know what is behind it?
I truly want to believe that the world is mostly good and everyone has everyone else's best interests at heart.
Then again, "If you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you".
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