Drug Dealers
Drug dealers are distributors and sellers of illegal drugs. They form a part of the illegal drug trade industry that is spread far and wide across the globe. Drug dealers feed the addictions of many drug addicts and also create new drug habit in people who are not well informed about the effects of drugs (Taylor and Potter 396). Most drug dealers are in the business for the money. A recent study done on former drug dealers reveals that the main motivation is the money. A drug dealer can earn up to $800,000 in a year, sometimes more (Jacques, Wright and Allen 662). They, however, risk going to prison in case they get caught. Drug dealing is a profitable, risky and morally questionable career. Nevertheless, the drug dealers do it in pursuit of their happiness. To the drug dealers, happiness comes in the form of money. They are able to afford a life they dreamt of; buy expensive cars, provide for their families, buy homes and other things that only money can buy.
Drug Dealers' Approach to happiness
To drug dealers, happiness is found in money. All drug dealers attest to the fact that the reason behind their dealing is the money they can get from it. Growing up, drug dealers, like most people have big dreams. However, as adulthood sets in, they realize that dreams aren't as easy to achieve as they had expected. Just like to many people money equals happiness, to a drug dealer, having enough money to afford the things they have always wanted and making their dreams a reality is the happiness they can ever hope for (Jacques, Wright and Allen 656).
The guilt of ruining lives often tends to go away when drug dealers get their money. Money means they can provide for their families better and live their lives in the first lane. A drug dealer approaches happiness from a money perspective. They are happy as long as the money keeps coming irrespective of who gets hurt or dies in the process. Despite the unethical business they run, drug dealers comfort themselves with the fact that they do not force their clients to purchase, rather, their clients look for them to buy what they have. In as much as they are directly linked to the bad choices that people make, drug dealers do not make decisions for drug addicts and other people who choose to engage in drugs. They are focused rather on getting rich addicted clients who can pay promptly and keep the money coming.
Drug dealers are dedicated to working hard and beating their dealer competitors in getting the best clients. They approach dealing as a career that needs hard work and dedication. They understand that work ethics applies in drug dealing just as it applies in other forms of business. As a result, they take their jobs as seriously as they possibly can and avoid places and people that they need to avoid. A high school drug dealer confessed in an interview that he has to avoid the kids in school who know the type of business he is engaged in because they are likely to rob him and take off with his money or report to the authorities (Haugen and Musser 105). Drug dealers must, therefore, take care of themselves and watch out for potential adversaries even as they pursue happiness.
Dealers understand that like any other business, a risk is involved. They are hoverer ready to take these risks if the end result is the dream life they want. Despite knowing the negative side effects of drugs, drug dealers cut off their relationship with their conscience and instead focus on the money gained from the business. It suits them to say that they are struggling like everyone else to irk a living, even if theirs is not considered morally upright.
Reasons behind Drug Dealers foolish and illogical pursuit of happiness
It's often said that money doesn't buy happiness, however, to a drug dealer, money is the only happiness they know of. Drug dealers are often swept by the wave of greed for money. They commit their lives to becoming rich and in so doing getting ahead in life. Most drug dealers are impatient of the struggle that it takes some people to succeed in life. They want the money as soon as they can lay hands on it. According to recent studies, not all drug dealers are low class non-educated tattooed gangsters. Some drug dealers have a college education and decent families but are greedy for money. They want to live a life they cannot afford and have to do things they should do to live that life.
Like everyone else, drug dealers are simply trying to build a career for themselves, and do something with their lives. Many of them are from poor backgrounds, have poor educational, backgrounds and lack role models to guide them. Most of them began taking care of themselves at a young age and had to struggle to keep afloat. Most drug dealers have horrendous backgrounds filled with poverty, abuse, and humiliation. Happiness to them, therefore, lies in being powerful, and the feeling of power comes to them when they are financially enabled.
Financial empowerment to drug dealers means they not only get to live a good life but also elevate the status of their respective families. Most drug dealers are running away from the poverty they grew up in. They would rather risk their freedom and lives and live the dream life they want to live rather than experience the poverty they did in their past. Most of them want to be rich enough to protect themselves from the people who abused them. Maximum protection comes with the cost of money. Dealers are not ready to lose the comfort that money gives them for anything that is likely to pay them less than they are used to. Regardless, there are some drug dealers who have stable backgrounds in all aspects, but who choose to become drug dealers because they want to make more money. In making much money, they find their happiness.
The common factor for all drug dealers, irrespective of background is money. It is the driving force, the key motivator for all drug dealers. Drug dealing comes with a high degree risk- the risk of getting killed, being imprisoned, having one's families targeted etcetera. However, drug dealers tend to be aware and accepting of these factors so long as the money keeps coming.
At some point, drug dealers lose touch with their consciousness. They fail to recognize how much of an issue drugs are in the society we live in. They want to have the best things in life and not care how many lives they ruin while they are at it- even if sometimes it's the lives of their own families.
To the drug dealer, the business is local in that it gives them an opportunity to make money by working hard to get clients in rich neighborhoods and keeping themselves safe. Drug dealers convince themselves that their hustle is as legit as other hustles so long as they rob nobody and are able to give their families a decent life.
Regardless, drug dealing goes against all the moral and ethical principles that the society should live by. Slowly participating in killing and ruining the lives of young people is morally and ethically wrong. Dealers can justify their actions with the fact that they do not force their clients to buy drugs for them. However, making drugs available to people, both addicts and non-addicts contribute to an unhealthy society where young people cannot live up to their full potentials and become the productive people they are meant to become.
Lessons from Drug Dealers Pursuit for Happiness
The pursuit of happiness is a noble course. It a journey that opens up doors and opportunities that would have otherwise remained close. However, as people pursue their happiness, they must not interfere with other people's happiness in the process. Acquiring happiness at the expense of other people's lives and crumbled dreams are not achieving full and real happiness. Happiness should not come at the expense of other people's misery. To drug dealers, happiness comes when the lives of other people are ruined, and hopes are lost. The negative impact of drugs on the society cannot be emphasized enough. A drug dealer's pursuit of happiness is not justified because of the people who suffer from their products.
Drug dealing promotes addictions that are difficult to overcome. Most drug addicts end up dead or desolate. Achieving happiness while ruining the lives of other people brings only a false sense of happiness. Happiness is not what one feels because he can afford something, it's the feeling of content that an individual feels knowing that he or she has not damaged anyone in any way to afford the simple things in life.
Drug dealers know the extremely negative effects of drugs. They know how it ruins families and leads to wounded children and eventually to a dysfunctional society ("Drug Addiction and Families" 1842). However, their false sense of happiness comes from all the pain and ruin they cause in the society. A lot of problems exists today because of drug dealer's greed for money. While they believe that money is their source of happiness, drug dealing is a risky business that involves always being on the run and avoiding the police as much as possible.
Little happiness is found in a job that risks an individual's freedom. Drug dealers risk going to prison for long periods, sometimes for life depending on the quantity of drug they are caught with. Happiness and paranoia cannot exist within the same person at once. Drug dealers are paranoid even of their clients who sometimes are police officers posing as drug users.
The dedication and hard work that drug dealers put towards getting clients and meeting demands are quite commendable. Such work ethics are applicable in every career field. However, when hard work and dedication comes at the expense of ruining lives, it ceases to become worthwhile. Instead, it becomes a menace to the society that drug dealers live in.
Neighborhoods with rampant drug dealing businesses are unsafe because of the constant fight for customers and control. Drug dealers have made places that would have otherwise been safe heavens unsafe for children and families. Places controlled by drug dealers are marked with a heightened sense of insecurity for inhabitants so much such that some people have to move to pother places that are slightly much safer than areas controlled by drug dealers.
After all, has been said and done, happiness is a choice. It doesn't have to come as a result of money or fame. People can choose to be happy with their little progress and to hope that the future brings good tidings (Veenhoven 1071). Making a lot of money is a definite cause for happiness. It means that an individual is able to provide for himself, his family and live his dream life. To a drug dealer, money and happiness are closely related. The inflow of money means an automatic happiness to a drug dealer, however fleeting this happiness may be.
When making money becomes the most important part of an individual's life such that an individual ceases to care about other people, the happiness can only be short-lived. True happiness lies in achieving one's dreams without cutting short other people's dreams. Drug dealers, in their pursuit of happiness, cut short other people s dreams and potentials. They knowingly sell drugs to people to help them ruin their lives. Despite most people making a choice to use drugs, drug dealers should not make available substances that have the potential to ruin individuals, families and ultimately an entire society (Barret, 73t).