Happy endings

"I wish people talked more about happy endings."

Melissa looked at her boyfriend, biting sarcasm in her eyes. "Are you kidding me?" she asked him. "You know just as well as I do that if people did that, you would just be jealous that their lives are better than yours."

"That's not true," Mark responded. "You always hear people talking about how shitty everything is, and how terrible life is, and how there's no point in doing anything that you want to do because it will never be appreciated. Can you imagine how many people must be put down by that kind of talk on a daily basis? But if people talked about the people who make it and make a difference in the world, we could inspire an entire generation of people to go out there and make the world a better place."

Melissa blinked, surprised at the depth and sophistication to which Mark was going. He had never been a particularly deep person. "What got you thinking about this?" she asked.

Mark scratched his head, trying to think of just where the thought had come from. "I'm not really sure," he explained. "I guess it's just something that's been festering in my head for a while. I remember being a kid, and having people tell me to put aside my hobbies and make more time for the things that would supposedly really matter further down the line in life. They made me feel like the things I wanted to do weren't worth doing. But then sometimes I would see people more experienced doing the things that I liked doing, and they looked happier than the people trying to tell me to stop. So I stopped listening to those people."

"Sure, but how do you know all people are going to be like that? There are people out there, after all, who will do something just to prove to other people that they can. Some people look at the bad things in life and make a positive change because of that."

Mark nodded, thinking about that. "I guess you're right," he said. "So maybe there needs to be some kind of mix. But I still think that we don't talk about the happy endings enough. They come up in stories and movies all the time, but hardly anyone ever talks about them in real life. It's like those are things that are reserved solely for fairy tales, but that's not really the case."

"Yeah, I see where you're coming from. So why don't you do something about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't you make a difference? Make your own happy ending, and spread your story. Make people hear about it. Be the person who makes happy endings the more popular thing to talk about."

Mark smiled and chuckled. "Alright," he said. "But you have to help me."

Melissa smiled back at him. "I suppose I can do that. But what do I get out of it?"

Mark chuckled some more. "Your own happy ending."