100 Clucking Articles!

Me being happy.

This bird has reached a milestone! I'm not talking about Facebook page likes or hate mail; it's The Cackling Hen's 100th article at TheCacklingHen.com! We've been through a lot, haven't we? This huge article also lands around the Hen's 2-year anniversary of launching this site after USFSP forced me to graduate and end my havoc on The Crow's Nest. But the anniversary is less of a celebration and more of a reminder to pay my renewal fee to GoDaddy.

I've been wracking my bird brain on what to write for this big event. Highlight the best articles? Eat 100 pounds of seed? Make fun of Cher? Then, after flapping through social media feeds, I remembered there is already a viral "100" theme out there for the pecking: #100happydays.

100 days of happiness, because we need to publicly show we are happy for a set, milestone number of days, otherwise no one will care. Or something like that.


I initially liked the basic concept of this (and still do), but as my social feed got cluttered with happy things, I had some questions.

• How did we get to such a miserable place in society where forcing ourselves to think of one happy thing for 100 days in a row was a challenge?
• Must this happy challenge be so public? Wouldn't it have the same benefits, if not more, if it was kept in a personal journal?
• Really? That makes you happy?

As I watched this challenge, it quickly turned into 100 days of more annoying posts on my news feed. There were rambling, nonsensical posts recapping a full day. There were pictures of  bloody wounds and injuries with captions like "Happy it wasn't worse! #100happydays," even though they were so maimed, they could barely type. And just as someone was wrapping up their set days of happiness, someone else was starting. I'd quickly had enough of social media happiness! So I started clucking, #100daysofclucking.

I'm all about happiness - this blog is for your happiness. But I remember a time when we didn't have to share everything on social media, mainly because we couldn't. Putting all this "happiness" out there on the interwebs can quickly turn a pure idea into a competition. Sure, you're happy with your fancy omelet and cute dog, but look at Penny's filet mignon and perfect farm! Someone always has it better, and Facebook is a daily reminder. "Facebook envy" has become a subject of studies, and it's making people miserable. So is putting all this "happiness" on Facebook really helpful?

I consider myself a generally happy person. I'm not always happy, nobody is, and I also need to remind myself off all the positive things in my life sometimes. But there's nothing inherently funny about #100happydays. That's why I'm combatting it with #100daysofclucking. Misery loves company and misery can be funny- just look any episode of America's Funniest Home Videos - all those people are getting hurt and we laugh. So I'm sharing something that ticks me off each day. Hopefully it gives you a small daily cackle so you don't have to worry about this #100happydays challenge; you already know The Cackling Hen makes you happy!

So thank you for reading some or all of my 100 articles! 

Be happy...in a journal.


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