The first time I listened to the song Don’t Let the Good Life Pass You By by Cass Elliot (Mama Cass!), I audibly cheered to the lyrics. This feel-good folksy tune sends a remarkably simple message: life can be wonderful and we shall cherish the little pleasures of it while we can. It sounds cheesy but is ultimately a message worth taking seriously.
The “good life” is an elusive concept which I doubt we can ever concretely define, nor should we. Living a “good life” is perhaps one of the oldest and most universally shared missions of humankind, but what it means is just as ambiguous and contentious. I have gone through different phases of identifying with particular ideas as to what a “good life” entails, and up to this day the only thing I can confidently concur with is the notion that, really, each of us should just be left alone to define and pursue what a “good life” personally means. To some people, I may come across as a hardcore advocate of a certain way of life or someone who is hellbent on changing others’ preferences. But in truth, I only wish to protest any sort of draconian brainwashing that aims to fit everyone into a singular mindset, lifestyle, or aspiration – especially when done on large scale. Whether we are collectively conditioned to believe that the ultimate objective of human life is the accumulation of material wealth, or we are raised to worship social harmony at the cost of individual freedom – any attempt to force society under the doctrine of one single definition of a “good life” is ironically a thief of the very “good life” humankind is striving for.
That said, the words in Mama Cass’s song resonate with me a lot, because they challenge one particular idea about modern society and its domineering norms head-on. Though the song was released in 1970, I find the words still incredibly relevant today. In describing pieces that make up the “good life”, Mama Cass was singing about sounds of rain fall, homemade apple pies, sunsets, and other simple joys to which we too often pay no attention. The strangest thing about modern life is that we are even more likely to take heed of these as backdrops or props for our personal flaunting and curation in public/via social media. These simple joys bear no inherent value, but can signal a few things about our supposedly impressive lives when integrated into our public presence: “Look I’m an excellent baker”, “I’m a romantic with a sensitivity to beauty and nature”, etc. Our behaviors clearly prioritize something else (our ego? social validation?) other than these innocent, unassuming things. We exploit and co-opt them to our advantage in chasing a different kind of “good life”.
The mass normalization of the pursuit of material wealth, social status, and power as if these factors adequately fulfill all of our needs makes these aspirations seem inevitable and indispensable. It’s almost as if the primary, if not sole, purpose of living is to “get rich”, to “buy”, to “consume”. We exist in the age of things being translated into monetary values, into currencies bought and sold. Our standing in society is measured by how much we earn, which also somehow corresponds with how willing people are to be friends with us. Because we are so deeply conditioned in these ideas, challenging them becomes uncomfortable and undesirable. When everything around us seems to propel us in a particular direction, resisting this movement or going against the current would just be unduly difficult. At that point, we tend to forget that:
Man was made for lovin’, not for buyin’
Gold can’t get the things we really need
Just look, my friend, there’s happiness in livin’
Somewhere between broke and bein’ free
Money is valuable for various reasons and depending on one’s own personal ideals, it can be at the top of one’s priorities. Still, enforcing the pursuit of money and a lifestyle that serves it (or a lifestyle that it serves) on everyone dispossesses people of agency and thwarts their own experience of a “good life”. We don’t need to denounce money altogether or aim for a different set of ideals. But if society could just tolerate the variety of people’s individual choices when it comes to the values they identify with and wish to pursue, we would all be less likely to “let the good life pass [us] by”. When we are collectively stuck in a uniform system of beliefs and values, we let the opportunities to think independently slip by, and slowly give up our own happiness and contentment to the push-and-pull forces of society’s conventions and expectations. The lyrics in Mama Cass’s song may imply a certain notion of the “good life”, and I happen to agree with them considerably. Still, what I hope for is a loosening of our conformity to any particular ideal. Whatever it is that each of us wish for in life, we shall deserve to pursue it with dignity and without judgment, as long as it honors the boundaries of collective safety and wellbeing. Then perhaps we wouldn’t let the good life slip by in our blind quest for something arbitrarily imposed on us.