RAECHEL AND JACQUELINE HOUCK-DAUGHTERS,SISTERS, AND THE FAILURE OF AUTOMOBILE RECALLS.

REST IN PEACE 

Raechel and Jacqueline Houck 

I am often asked to write about victims experiences and that of their families. All are worthy of being written about, but that is not possible for me to do. 

In particular, because of the death of my son Steven Nathaniel Wolkoff at he age of 30, which was also caused by malfeasance,  I very much identify with the excruciating realities of our loss, of the endless intense suffering damages of a parent's worse nightmare that the Houck family and my family will live with for the rest of our lives.

Today's post is about two young women, Raechel and Jacqueline Houck were just 24 and 20  years old when they were killed in a horrific tragedy that could have been prevented. 

It's a simple solution to prevent what happened to their daughters from occurring again but sadly, politics, greed, corporations, and the zero value that society places on victims lives are preventing the actions necessary to make sure this never happens again to someone else's children.

It's also an easy, 10 second task that is being asked of you :

                   PLEASE SIGN THE PARENTS PETITION 

Petitioning Congressman Fred Upton

Support the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act An unrepaired, recalled Chrysler rental car killed both of my beautiful, talented, treasured daughters, Raechel and Jacqueline. Chrysler issued a safety recall notice about 30 days before they rented it, but the rental company never bothered to get the free repairs done first. Federal law prohibits car dealers from selling recalled new cars, but there is no similar law to stop rental car companies from renting dangerous recalled cars. And now that Congress is finally close to passing a bill that would change that, key members of Congress need to hear from everyone who cares about rental car safety. Raechel and Jackie were just 24 and 20, full of life, and devoted to making the world a better place. They were on their way back home from visiting their father, younger brother, and me when the Chrysler PT Cruiser they rented caught fire. It had been recalled for a defective steering component prone to leaking, causing an underhood fire and loss of steering. The car veered across the median and crashed head-on into a tractor trailer. The big rig drivers and other witnesses said the car was on fire before the crash. Some auto manufacturers and car dealers are aggressively lobbying to block this bill, named after Raechel and Jackie, that would make it a violation of federal law for a rental car company to rent or sell recalled cars with lethal safety defects, until the defects have been repaired. They have the ear of Congressman Fred Upton, the powerful Chair of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, which may decide its fate. Eventually, the rental car company admitted 100% liability for their deaths, and years later, they also apologized to me. They’re even working with me to pass The Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act, which has passed in the Senate with bipartisan support. The House will vote soon as part of the transportation bill being debated this very moment. And while the rental car companies and auto manufacturers like GM and Honda support this bill, other auto manufacturers and dealers are fighting against it. Everyone who rents a car deserves one that is safe, and free from known lethal safety defects. Nothing can replace my daughters, but together we can keep other families from suffering such a needless, horrendous loss. Please, join me in calling on Congressman Fred Upton to support Raechel and Jackie’s bill, before someone else is seriously injured or killed. These parent's are fighting to make sure that this doesn't happen to your loved ones. They are also up against powerful special interest groups who have not a shred of humanity when it involves the death of human beings that can be prevented if stronger laws were in place to protect us. Surely, you can take the 10 seconds it will require to sign their petition and protect your own family's lives.

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE-SHEEPLE.

MODERN SOCIETY-IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

SHEEPLE VICTIMS 

I have to stop saying "How stupid can you be". 

Some people are starting to take it as a challenge. 

We live in a world filled with Sheeple.

SHEEPLE: a portmanteau of “sheep” and “people” is a term of disparagement in which people are likened to sheep, a herd animal. The term is used to describe those who voluntarily acquiesce to a suggestion without critical analysis or research.

Scientists at the University of Leeds have conducted research that proves the tendency that many humans have to act like sheep, unwittingly following the crowd as if they didn’t possess a reasoning mind. 

While this may have its uses in some situations, such as planning pedestrian flow in busy areas, it doesn’t inspire a ton of hope for humankind.

The study showed that it takes a minority of just five percent to influence a crowd’s direction and that the other 95 percent follow without even realizing what is going on.

Professor Krause, with PhD student John Dyer, conducted a series of experiments in which groups of volunteers walked randomly around a large hall. Within the group, a few received instructions regarding where to walk. Participants were not allowed to communicate with one or intentionally influence anyone.

The findings in all cases revealed that the informed individuals were followed by the others in the crowd, forming a self-organizing, snake like structure or flock of sheep.

“We’ve all been in situations where we got swept along by a crowd,” said Professor Krause. “But what’s interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn’t realize they were being led by others at all.”

Scary. 

Are we such sheeple that we allow a few “informed” people to lead us around without even knowing what’s happening? 

Sadly, it makes sense. How many fall for scams of all kinds because of friends or “informed” sources, from pyramid schemes to religious hoaxes and political charlatans . 

We seem to believe just about anything, or blindly tolerate it as long as the message is delivered with enough social credibility.

Eventually it becomes too late to realize that one has wasted their entire life trying to please the plethora of idiots around them, instead of educating and molding tomorrow for the better.

It is mindless life to spend the majority of one’s years as a slave without even knowing it. 

When you finally realize your life sucks, the distinctive reaction of any authentic sheeple is to blame the system. 

So, do this. Convince yourself that it’s not your fault; it’s the system’s fault. 

The system should have taken care of all your needs and make you happy, without requiring you to think for yourself, not believe everything you’re told, have initiative, find your own path and follow it.

Assuming responsibility for your own existence implies thinking responsibly and rationally. And that’s not what a sheeple does.

It’s so much easier to blame the system! 

Your life will continue to suck, it will probably get worse with every passing day, but at least you will not feel guilty about it because "someone else" did this to you.

Ignorance is bliss becomes your goal in life as the forever delusion of being a "victim"

A STATE OF DISGUSTING IN FLINT MICHIGAN'S POISONED WATER

Water towers in America usually boast the names of the communities they serve, often with a mascot or slogan; totems of civic pride. Not in Flint Michigan. This one merely proclaims: FLINT WATER PLANT. And this one stands for betrayal, mismanagement corruption and scandal.

Flint Michigan, U.S.A., is a town of 100,000 human beings located about 70 miles from the shores of the largest group of fresh water bodies in the world: the Great Lakes. 
Yet its residents can't get clean water from their home faucets.

What is the dollar value of knowingly using poisoned water on innocent victims? 

In Flint Michigan, the answer is zero.

Nearly two years ago, the State of Michigan decided to save money by switching Flint's water supply from Lake Huron (which they were paying the city of Detroit for), to the Flint River, a notorious polluted tributary known to locals for its filth.

The pollutants in the Flint River, a result of decades of unchecked chemical dumping by General Motors and other companies, have made the river water highly toxic.

In 2011, Flint was declared to be in a financial state of emergency, and the State took budgetary control. Therefore, all the decisions made during the water crisis were at the State level, which State officials confirmed, not by the City Council or the Mayor.

The switch was made during this financial emergency in April 2014 after Darnell Earley, an unelected emergency manager appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, switched Flint’s water source to the long-polluted and corrosive Flint River in a bid to save money.  

It was supposed to be temporary while a new State run supply line to Lake Huron was to be constructed for connection. The project was estimated to take about two years.

Soon after the switch, the water started to look, smell and taste funny. Residents said it often looked dirty and brown in color.

But what residents couldn't see was far worse. About half of the service lines to homes in Flint are made of lead and because the water wasn't properly treated, lead  and iron began leaching into the water supply.

Instead of immediately addressing the problem, the Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley paid the Veolia Corp. $40,000 to conduct a study which recommended reducing other unsafe pollutants with chemicals and using filters. 

Incredibly, this Veolia Corp. study through incompetence, or possibly deliberate reasons, failed to address the lead pipe corrosion issue by completely ignoring it. 

Bob Bowcock, an associate of environmental activist Erin Brockovich, after studying the situation for no charge, recommended the obvious: reconnect to Detroit until the new project is finished.

Nothing was done.

This has been the status quo for nearly two years, and until September 2015, City and State officials told worried residents that everything was fine. Former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling even drank it on local TV to make the point.

No one believed State and local officials when they said that this disgusting looking brown water was safe.

The Flint River is highly corrosive: 19 times more so than the Lake Huron supply, according to researchers from Virginia Tech.

The Flint River is highly corrosive: 19 times more so than the Lake Huron supply, according to researchers from Virginia Tech.

According to a class-action lawsuit, the State Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) wasn't treating the Flint River water with an anti-corrosive agent, in violation of Federal law. Therefore, the water was eroding the iron water mains, turning water brown.

In August 2015, it took an independent effort by community activists, aided by University of Virginia professor and water safety specialist Marc Edwards, pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, and Michigan ACLU investigative journalist Curt Guyette, to expose both the toxic lead levels in the water, and the lead poisoning already impacting the children of Flint Michigan.

This group of researchers from Virginia Tech came up to Flint and did in home testing and found elevated levels of lead in the drinking water and made those findings public. 

State officials insisted their own research was more accurate and attempted tp discredit the above independent study.

The Town residents did not trust the public officials and finally realized that their water supply was poisoned and the State had been lying to them in a cover-up about the truth.

Residents are now part of the above class-action lawsuit that alleges not only lead poisoning but several medical conditions resulting from contaminated water after the switch. 

Despite enormous outrage from residents, officials repeatedly insisted that the water was safe to drink. 

The crisis only came to national attention in mid-December 2015, after Mayor Karen Weaver issued an official declaration of a state of emergency over the city's drinking water. In the statement, she called the situation a "man-made disaster" and the damage irreversible. 

Further Testing has found that the drinking water is extremely contaminated with lead, which can cause serious brain damage, especially in children.

Ten people there have also now died from Legionnaire's disease, a form of pneumonia likely linked to bacteria in the city’s water. Lead levels perilously above federal limits have put 100,000 people lives at risk.

Who's to blame?

A state appointed task force found that fault lies with the State, and on December 29, 2015, the Director of DEP,  Dan Wyant resigned because of the situation.

Former emergency manager Darnell Earley (who now has been appointed by Gov. Snyder as the emergency manager of Detroit's Public schools) says he's not to blame for the decision to use the Flint River as the city's source of drinking water.

Earley, who served as Flint's emergency manager from September 2013 until January 2015, said in an email to The Flint Journal-MLive on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015 that the water source decision was made months before he was appointed to run the city by Gov. Rick Snyder.

Earley said he had no reason at the time to second guess what appeared to have been a consensus decision.

"The decision to separate from (the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department) and go with the Karegnondi Water Authority, including the decision to pump Flint River water in the interim, were both a part of a long-term plan that was approved by Flint's mayor, and confirmed by a City Council vote of 7-1 in March of 2013, a full seven months before I began my term as emergency manager," Earley's email says.

Although the Flint City Council voted in March 2013 in support of moving to the KWA pipeline, a new pipeline that would serve the region with Lake Huron water, there is no record that the council voted to use the Flint River as a short-term drinking water source.

Earley, who toasted the switch to the river with city leaders in a ceremony in April 2014, said it was his "responsibility to implement the previously accepted and approved plan" since the city's contract with the Detroit water system expired during his term as emergency manager.

"It did not fall to me to second guess or to invalidate the actions that were taken prior to my appointment," his statement says.

While Earley oversaw the switch, the decision to switch was signed by Flint's previous State appointed emergency manager, Ed Kurtz.

Sara Wurfel, a spokeswoman for Snyder, said in a statement on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015 that the decision to use the Flint River "was pushed or supported by the city and community" and said the city had no choice but to find another source of water after the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) terminated Flint's contract to continue purchasing water under the terms of its expired contract.

Former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling has responded that the vote to become a partner in the KWA, a new regional water authority, should not be confused with a vote to use the Flint River as a temporary source of drinking water, a vote that never happened according to him.

In contrast to using the river, the city also could have negotiated a short-term contract to continue buying water from DWSD, for example.

"No resolution was ever brought before myself or the City Council by any emergency manager to use the Flint River as the temporary source," Walling said.

Kurtz signed an order March 29, 2013, for Flint to eventually purchase water from the KWA pipeline after it was finished, but that order says nothing about the city's use of the river.

So in following the bouncing ball of the blame "game" between Republicans and Democrats who were involved, it is clear that no-one is willing to take accountability for poisoning the people of Flint, and that there never was anything done that remotely involved what was in the best interests of the citizens of Flint Michigan.

Yet, after nearly two years of living with poisonous water and astonishing government negligence, Flint residents still pay between $100 and $200 a month for their water bills.

Amazingly, to add insult to literal injury, the city has started to send overdue payment notices that threaten to cut off water service. 

Six months before Michigan’s governor declared a state of emergency over high lead levels in the water in Flint, his top aide wrote in an email that worried residents were “basically getting blown off by us.”

“I’m frustrated by the water issue in Flint,” Dennis Muchmore, then chief of staff to Gov. Rick Snyder, wrote in the email to a top health department staffer obtained by NBC News.

“I really don’t think people are getting the benefit of the doubt. Now they are concerned and rightfully so about the lead level studies they are receiving,” Muchmore said.

Why those DEQ officials took the actions they did is a question at the center of a tragedy that has left an unknown number of children and other Flint residents poisoned by lead, has led to a federal lawsuit and calls for a U.S. Justice Department investigation. 

And:

Lead levels in Flint’s drinking water would have spurred action months sooner if the results of city testing that wrapped up in June 2015 had not been revised by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to wrongly indicate the water was safe to drink, e-mails show.

The records obtained by the Michigan ACLU and by Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech researcher who helped raise concerns about Flint’s water show how State officials first appear to have encouraged the City of Flint to find water samples with low lead levels and later told Flint officials to disqualify two samples with high readings. The move changed the overall lead level results to acceptable from unacceptable.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality manipulated the samples tested for lead to eliminate the samples with the highest concentration and thereby produce the result that it wanted: The appearance that the water was safe. 

Even using the Flint River water, the City of Flint could have prevented the corrosion of its copper and lead pipes relatively inexpensively:

Marc Edwards,  the professor from Virginia Tech who has been testing Flint water, says treatment could have corrected much of the problem early on,for as little as $100 a day, but officials didn’t take action because "they considered the cost of $100 per day as too expensive".

“There is no question that if the city had followed the minimum requirements under federal law that none of this would have happened,” said Edwards, who obtained the Muchmore email through a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request.

 As discussed above, this leaching could have been prevented by adding anti-corrosive chemicals to the water at a cost of roughly $100 per day and experts say 90% of the problems with Flint's water would have been avoided. Now, the corrosion of the lead pipes has destroyed the entire infrastructure. 

One hundred dollars a day would equal a mere $36,500 a year, a pittance in a budget of millions. To save $36,500 a year or maybe a little more, the city failed to treat the Flint River water, leaving it corrosive and able to leach lead and copper from the aging pipes used to transport it.

"When the governor appointed an emergency financial manager (in 2011), that person came here  to simply do one thing and one thing only, and that's cut the budget, at any cost," said Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee.

Kildee said the water crisis is indicative of an attitude about industrial towns such as Flint that have seen hard times in the past 30 years. They're often just forgotten, he said.

"This case shows that you can't treat cities the way you treat some Corporation that you might just sort of sell off," Kildee said.

Lead poisoning is irreversible. Pediatricians  fear the Flint children who tested with elevated levels will suffer lifelong consequences.

"If you were to put something in a population to keep them down for generation and generations to come, it would be lead,"  Dr. Hanna-Attisha said. "It's a well-known, potent neurotoxin. There's tons of evidence on what lead does to a child, and it is one of the most damning things that you can do to a population. It drops your IQ, it affects your behavior, it's been linked to criminality, it has multigenerational impacts. There is no safe level of lead in a child."

On January 5, 2016, three months after high lead levels were detected in Flint children, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency over the issue.

He then apologized for the State's actions, but residents and officials remain furious because the State had previously strongly denied the problem existed for months and failed to use anti-corrosive treatment on the river water, which might have reduced the iron. 

Too little, too late from the Governor, as the facts are that the State government officials knew that the water supply was poisoning the people of Flint, did nothing to fix the problem, instead adopting a policy of  knowingly lying to hide the truth of their actions, and did not admit they caused it until this scandal was exposed to the public.  

The U.S. Attorney in Michigan and the federal Environmental Protection Agency are also investigating why the state chose to ignore federal law and go without the anti-corrosive agent, as the lawsuit contends. 

Dayne Walling, the former mayor who so confidently went on TV and drank Flint River water to try to quell the early protests, lost his recent re-election bid in a campaign centered around the issue.

"In retrospect, I regret all of it," Walling said this weekend.

"All the way back to seeing the city move to a different drinking water source. You can't put a dollar amount of the devastation to our community, our kids, and it was completely avoidable."

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder ran for re-election and won as a numbers man.

"I'm an accountant. I've found I can help more people when the numbers add up," he explained in a political ad.

Not easy in a State still dealing with the collapse of the auto industry.

Flint was one of nine Michigan cities put under the control of State appointed emergency managers whose job it was to cut pay and cut services to make those numbers add up. 

And Flint's emergency managers found that switching the city's water system to a cheaper toxic source would save $5 million over two years.

Mind boggling, but it worked. The State of Michigan expects to show a budget surplus this year of $575 million. 

Which is good, because the cost of saving that $5 million in Flint will be very expensive.

It's already cost $6 million to switch the water back, plus fixing the damaged pipes could increase the total expenses to $1.5 billion. 

And according to one doctor, those thousands of children with lead poisoning: "These children will be injured for life."

There are many people who were involved in these decisions, others who are part of the cover-ups of the real situation by deliberately falsifying information, all are sworn to be doing their jobs of protecting the citizens they supposedly serve.

They should be arrested for their criminal acts.

There is a petition being circulated to have those public officials responsible for this tragedy to be held accountable, and if found guilty by a Federal investigation, sent to jail for what they have done.

But I know that won't happen, no-one will go to jail.

State officials were just doing their jobs, making sure the numbers add up. 

And jail time is too expensive.

FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US IN 2015

The Winter Holiday season, in particular Christmas  are portrayed in our society as the happiest time of the year, an opportunity to be joyful and grateful with family, friends and colleagues.

It has always seemed to me that this time of the year highlights the hypocrisy of Society by designating the period for everyone to be joyful, compassionate toward those less fortunate, being friendly, courteous, and doing "all the right" choreographed things in their interactions with others.

Suddenly sick children in hospitals are showered with free gifts by strangers, magical Santa Claus appears to provide needy children with toys, the poor are given free warm clothes, food, and treated as human beings.

What about the rest of the year, when most of these very same people who are still suffering, become invisible, ignored by most others, where does the kindness they received during the Holiday Season go? It simply disappears, these humans no longer are worthy of being recognized.

According to the National Institute of Health Christmas/Holiday Season is the time of year that people experience a high incidence of depression.

Hospitals and police forces report high incidences of suicide and attempted suicide.

Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Social Workers and other mental health professionals report a significant increase in patients complaining about depression.

One North American survey reported that 45% of respondents dreaded the season.

It appears to have more to do with unrealistic expectations and excessive self-reflection for many people.

For some people, they get depressed at this time of the year and even angry because of the extreme commercialization with the focus on gifts and the emphasis on "perfect" social activities.

Others get depressed because it appears to be a trigger to engage in excessive self-reflection and rumination about the inadequacies of life (and creates a "victim" mentality) in comparison with other people who seem to have more and do more.

Still others become anxious because of the pressure (both commercial and self-induced) to spend a lot of money on gifts and incur increasing debt.

Some report that they dread Christmas because of the expectations for social gatherings with family, friends and acquaintances that they'd rather not spend time with.

And finally, many people feel very lonely at Christmas, because they have suffered the loss of loved ones, are distant from family members, or live alone.

To counter all of this, I suggest that we all look back to the truly positive holiday spirit of "Happy Festivus" which is the traditional greeting of Festivus, a holiday featured in "The Strike" episode of The Seinfeld Televison show aired on December 18, 1997.

According to the Seinfeld model, Festivus is celebrated each year on December 23rd. 

However many people celebrate it other times in December, and even at other times throughout the year.

The slogan of Festivus is "A Festivus for the rest of us!"

The usual holiday tradition of a tree is replaced by an unadorned aluminum pole, which is in direct contrast to normal holiday materialism.

Those attending Festivus may also participate in the "Airing of Grievances" which is an opportunity to tell others how they have disappointed you in the past year, followed by a Festivus dinner, and then completed by the "Feats of Strength" where the head of the household must be pinned.

The Festivus celebration includes four main components:

The Festivus Pole: The tradition begins with an aluminum pole, which is used for its "very high strength-to-weight ratio."

During Festivus, the unadorned Festivus Pole is displayed.

The pole was chosen apparently in opposition to the commercialization of highly decorated Christmas trees, because it is "very low-maintenance," and also because the holiday's patron, Frank Costanza, "finds tinsel distracting."

The Airing of Grievances: At the beginning of the Festivus dinner, each participant tells friends and family of all the instances where they disappointed him or her that year.

As quoted from Frank Costanza: "I've got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!"

Festivus Dinner: A celebratory dinner is shown on the evening of Festivus prior to the Feats of Strength. In the episode the meal appeared to be meat loaf or spaghetti in a red sauce.

The Feats of Strength: After the dinner, the head of the household tests his or her strength against one participant of their choosing.

Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned. However, a participant may be allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the household only if they have something better to do instead.

Set aside today,  the day of December 23rd or another day this month and break out the meat loaf, because Festivus is once again upon us! 

THERE IS NO WORD FOR A PARENT THAT LOSES A CHILD. A NIGHTMARE OF STEVEN AND MYSELF.

A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. 

A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. 

A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. 

There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That’s how awful the loss is.   
(Jay Neugeboren  "An Orphan’s Tale",1976).

The death of a child is every parent’s worst fear and has been rendered to be “a catastrophic stressor unlike any other” by the "Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual". 

Grief is not an illness to be treated or cured.

Grief is a response to a painful reality that one’s world is forever altered, and will never be the same. 

Absorbing this loss, and trying to adapt to the changes it unleashes, has its own unique course for every person, and will not be stilled or stopped by quick fixes or simple solutions.

And so, it was that kind of night again.

A nightmare of Steven and myself .

He was a teenager and cheerfully explaining to me how his grades in School were so excellent.

I could barely see his face, but Steven's voice, his mannerisms, all of  him were clear, talking to me, vividly, truly it appeared to be in real life.

I remember thinking, "how can he have grades in school if he is dead, how do I tell him that he is dead,  how did he get to be back in school again", and my feeling completely confused about what was happening.

I struggled, agonized to see more, hear more of Steven, but what I was experiencing became slower and slower, crawling, almost frozen in time.

I tried to see if I was awake or deep within some nightmare, it all had seemed so life like, so real, but nothing moved for what seemed like a long time.

Suddenly I awoke, within a nano second, a painful burning sense of reality struck me full force.

Steven is dead, and dead means forever gone.

HAPPINESS CAN'T BE BOUGHT. IT"S ELUSIVE, IT"S AWESOME LOOKING, INSIDE AND OUTSIDE YOUR BRAIN.

This is what happiness really looks like: Molecules of the motor protein myosin drag a ball of endorphins along an actin filament into the inner part of the brain's parietal cortex, which produces feelings of happiness.  They are "strutting' as they "walk", seemingly aware of their impressive powers.

                      
Below is also myosin walking along an actin filament. This is a bit harder to see because these are real electron microscope images pasted together into a sequence.

This single molecule of myosin is "walking" because of an oscillating chemical reaction causing the molecule to rotate, attach, detach its other "foot", rotate again, attach, repeat. 

This is one little protein doing one little tiny thing, inside one tiny little cell, somewhere in your body. 

This is only one kind of protein performing one kind of action in one cell in your body. 

There are things like this, there are enzymes, there are all kinds of other mechanisms doing little "jobs" like this within each cell in your body. 

We're talking large numbers of things like this happening all the time in every cell, billions or trillions of actions. That's a lot of shit happening.

Perhaps, due to an error made by one of these little proteins at conception, or a change in your metabolism, your body doesn't "know" how to produce this or other molecules. 

Perhaps your body makes a little bit more or less of this myosin than another person
  
When you begin to realize the utter complexity of what's going on in the body, you can understand it isn't that easy to feel happiness, let alone actually finding happiness.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed.

You can buy an education, but happiness comes separately. 

You can buy a new car or you can buy a new house, but happiness comes separately. 

You can go shopping and buy everything you want, but happiness comes separately. 

You can get married or you can get divorced, but happiness comes separately. 

You can make a lot of money, but happiness comes separately. 

You can win the Lottery, but happiness comes separately.

You think you will be happy when you buy the new car or the larger house. And you will, but not for very long. 

Money can buy you a new car or a larger house. 

Money can buy you many things, but money can't buy you happiness.

Happiness is sold separately and it cannot be bought with money.

Money buys things, and happiness is not a "thing." Happiness is an inner state of mind.

We all want happiness. People want to be happy. This is the basic reason we do everything that we do.

We may think we are trying to get things, so we can feel more secure, be more loved or maybe we feel more important. 

The truth is that we do everything we do to derive happiness. 

If we learned that the main reason we desire the things we want are to experience happiness, we would value happiness more than just "things."

Happiness is probably the most important feeling that a human being can attain in their life. It is also sometimes the most elusive of all emotions.

We know the pleasurable feelings inside when we are happy but now we know what happiness actually look like in our brain.

Endorphins are chemicals that are able to cross through the gaps between neurons in order to pass along a message from one to the next. There are many different kinds, and much remains to be learned about their different purposes and functions.

One thing is known for certain about endorphins: their ability to make you feel oh-so-good. When your body is subjected to certain stimuli like sex, food or pain, your hypothalamus calls for endorphins, and the cells throughout your body that contain them heed the call. 

When endorphins lock into special receptor cells, called opioid receptors, because opiates also fit them, they block the transmission of pain signals and also produce a euphoric feeling, exactly like opiates.

Endorphins act as both a painkiller and as the pay off for your body's reward system. When you hurt yourself you may get a big dose of endorphins to ease the pain. 

You may also get an endorphin surge from talking to a stranger, eating chocolate, eating a satisfying meal, especially a sweet dessert, or being exposed to ultraviolet light. 

Everyone has different amounts of endorphins, and what may trigger an endorphin rush for one person could very well produce a dud for someone else.

Are you less happy than your parents were at the same age? 

It may not be all in your head. Researchers led by San Diego State University professor Jean M. Twenge found adults over age 30 are not as happy as they used to be, but teens and young adults are happier than ever.

Researchers,including Ryne A. Sherman of Florida Atlantic University and Sonja Lyubomirsky of University of California, Riverside, analyzed data from four nationally representative samples of 1.3 million Americans ages 13 to 96 taken from 1972 to 2014.

They found that after 2010, the age advantage for happiness found in prior research vanished. There is no longer a positive correlation between age and happiness among adults, and adults older than 30 are no longer significantly happier than those ages 18 to 29.

"Our current culture of pervasive technology, attention-seeking, and fleeting relationships is exciting and stimulating for teens and young adults, but may not provide the stability and sense of community that mature adults require," said Twenge, who is also the author of "Generation Me."

Data showed that 38 percent of adults older than 30 said they were "very happy" in the early 1970s, which shrunk to 32 percent in the 2010s. Twenty-eight percent of adults ages 18 to 29 said they were "very happy" in the early 1970s, versus 30 percent in the 2010s.

Over the same time, teens' happiness increased: 19 percent of 12th graders said they were "very happy" in the late 1970s, versus 23 percent in the 2010s.

"American culture has increasingly emphasized high expectations and following your dreams,things that feel good when you're young," Twenge said. 

"However, the average mature adult has realized that their dreams might not be fulfilled, and less happiness is the inevitable result. Mature adults in previous eras might not have expected so much, but expectations are now so high they can't be met."

That drop in happiness occurred for both men and women, said Twenge.

 "A previous study in 2008 got quite a bit of attention when it found that women's happiness had declined relative to men's. 

We now find declines in both men's and women's happiness, especially after 2010."

Sure we can feed ourselves sweets, ice cream, good food, drugs, alcohol, or exercise and they will temporarily create happiness by pushing the myosin onto stimulating the endorphins.

If you can find a way to bottle consistent happiness, you will be the "richest" person in the world.

For now, eat your chocolate, choose your favorite flavors of ice cream, find someone you can love, do whatever it takes, and if you are lucky enough, you will feel happy some of the time.