Queen Oprah unveiled a new quiz developed to gauge a person’s overall level of happiness. I consider her a guru on gladness. She will never hurt for cash. She has a boyfriend that is not even thinking about domesticating her. And as we learned this week, she even has suprise siblings! Because I trust her opinion more than my own, I had to check it out. It isn’t enough to simply feel and believe that you are happy, friends. Oprah needs to give your mood the stamp of approval! The questions run the gamut from how often you do the dirty to how well you know your neighbors.
{NOTE: By knowing your neighbors I do not think she meant knowing them in the Biblical sense. Although, the questions were listed side by side, and it got me thinking….gross. Mr. Terry working in his lawn shirtless, shredding my happiness in the blades of his ’89 push mower.}
The problem is I have a peculiar way of quiz-taking. The teeny test can cover a topic to which I feel 100% confident I know the answer, but as I get to checking those black-and-white boxes a wave of uncertainty smacks into me.
Are you fabulous?
What’s the best fit of Mom Jean for your tush?
Is your hair brown and are you Tori Nelson?
I begin each quiz stable and secure in my position.
I am fabulous.
TwoTall, dark rinse, bootcut, STRETCH.
Brown as a brown bear’s bottom.
Yes, I is her.
Conspiracy theories and worried suspicions of trick questions seep in, and suddenly I don’t know if the sky is blue, if maybe UP isn’t really DOWN, and maybe my birth name was Betty after all. It is the Lesson in Following Directions quiz every grade school teacher passed out in the first weeks of a new school year. Read all the directions before beginning the quiz. In a competitive rush to smoke my classmates’ testing times, I’d fly through the questions: color two dots, add and multiple, draw a green snake, write your name in cursive. I’d finish with an exhilarated sweat beading at my brow, nearly jittery with my fast-paced domination of the tasks.
Without fail, every year I failed to read instructions, rushing through the answers and missing the point. As I dug colored pencils through the paper and into the laminate desktop, schoolkids rolled their eyes at my stupidity. The last line of the directions explained to turn your paper over. The point of the quiz was to not take the quiz.
Well, happiness is no laughing matter. It isn’t acceptable to feel content and pleasant about my life. I need this quiz to put it on a screen and make it official. So I began the test with honest intentions of finding out how happy I am (in the eyes of Lady Winfrey).
{Note: Midway through the quiz I realized that the computer would take my honest responses and translate them the worst possible way. This resulted in the first half of the quiz being truthful answers. The second set of answers were purposefully chosen because they sounded like the most joyous options available. Is quiz-cheating an addiction? Can you have a serious addiction and still win the Happiness Quiz?}
The (semi-truthful) results are in:
I AM HAPPY! I. AM. SO. HAPPY. RIGHT. NOW!
(but if we’re being honest, I should probably have more sex and sit in silence for 10 minutes a day?)
YOU get happy! And YOU and YOU and YOU get happy!
How happy are you? Take the Oprah Knows How To Be Positive Better Than You Quiz and share your results!
HAPPY Friday, y’all!
I’m with you, Tori! Isn’t it weird how easily you can begin doubting yourself! It’s a bitch to be overly-reflective and borderline-paranoid that the quiz is out to get you! It was, wasn’t it!? Ha Ha!
Hahaha! It WAS out to get me!
I took that quiz in school too, and failed it.
If you need a quiz to tell you whether you’re happy … well, then you’re not happy.
That’s the funny part. I am happy. The quiz was to see if Oprah thought I was happy, I suppose
I took the quiz and maybe I did it wrong, but I didn’t get an answer, just a bunch of little bars telling me what the rest of the world was thinking. I say screw Oprah (for her money)- let’s go get a drink!
Haha! Now THAT would make me happy. The answer is at the very top. I think she rigged the thing to tell us that we are all happy all the time!
Well, according to Queen Oprah, I too am pretty happy. I need to have more sex, and I need to meet my neighbors. The neighbor thing is problematic, as I live in a truly antisocial neighborhood. Of course, this isn’t the place I’d chose, so maybe in the next neighborhood. And, I guess I need more money to buy me a little bit more happiness in the form of life adventures.
Haha! I don’t believe the crazies who answered they have sex ALL the time. Wishful thinking maybe! I got pretty much the exact same results as you did…a little extra money would be nice and I only know 1 neighbor in the whole neighborhood (as in, I’ve said “Sorry my dog tried to eat your puppy. I’m Tori”.) Next neighborhood, I am going to channel Betty Crocker and make more of an effort (beer & pizza party?).
LOL. Funny. I don’t know if I want to take the quiz. Strangely I feel like I will never be as happy as Oprah comes across. But right now, feeling pretty good.
Also I have to say, I don’t know any of my neighbors! Not even one of them.
Does that make me a bad neighbor?
After taking the quiz, I can tell you, it doesn’t really shed new light on inner happiness. I think if you are feeling good then you are happy. You are totally right about living up to Oprah’s happiness expectations. I’d imagine it’d be pretty hard to match
I am a HORRIBLE neighbor, but I don’t feel too bad about it. I have met one neighbor (not his wife) because his dog got into our yard. Privacy makes me happy, I guess!
Since we just got power back on after being without since the storm hit on Wed, I am as estatically happy as a human being can be. And someone told me that it took Oprah’s sister three years to get to her. That sounds strange, although I’m sure Oprah had her story checked out more fully than the woman who claimed to be the lost Duchess Anastasia.
Three years is a long time, but I suppose Oprah doesn’t let every other Tom, Dick, and Harry get close to her with claims of relation. I already tried, apparently my 100% Caucasian bloodline was a dead giveaway
So, I started the quiz thinking, “Okay, Tori’s already warned us…I will not be shaken up by this thing!” Third question and I was going back and forth on my answers. Lol. I don’t really know how to interpret my results; it seems like it’s more comparative than anything else (look at what these other people say their answers are–are your answers like theirs?). I don’t like determining who I am or whether or not I’m happy based on other people’s identities and whether or not they’re happy, lol.
Maybe Queen Oprah should have labeled her quiz the “Compare Your Happiness Level To Other People’s!” Rather than “Are You Happy?” That’s okay, Queen Oprah. I know you have other, happier, things on your mind than whether or not the rest of us are happy. (I don’t know why, but I was super thrilled when I saw the show on Monday about her sister. I really admired her attitude, too–it’s family business and the public didn’t need to know about it until the family had handled its business.)
I loved the Lost Sister! I thought it was pretty neat that she didn’t sell the story. I thought the results were weird, too. At the top it will say if you scored between 50 and 74 you are happy, but then it gives you a list of how everyone and their mother answered. Kinda creepy!
Hey Tori, this is such a fun post! And if Queen Oprah tells you you’re happy, boy, you must be delirious, because she knows EVERYTHING! hahaha!
I kind of cheat on those quizzes too. Sometimes. Ok, often.
Sunshine
I’m working on a scientific study that would prove she is the second-cousin of Jesus. She HAS to have some kind of omniscient powers or something
Thanks for reading!
This is EXACTLY why I don’t trust any personality profile test, or Myers Briggs type test that I have taken. Just “knowing” that you are taking the test, gets you thinking about how you should be answering, so your answers will ALWAYS be skewed.
I don’t need St. Oprah to tell me I’m happy. I need her to MAKE me happy. Throw a little $$$ this way! Please! I promise I’ll improve my scores!
haha! You are so right. I cheat almost every time in an attempt to get the “best” results… even if they aren’t necessarily true!
If Oprah calls trying to give you a car, or a house, or a giant bag of cash, you let me know…I’ll come running!
I can’t believe you talked me into taking that quiz. So, apparently most people think happiness is genetic. Maybe that’s my problem. It’s my parent’s fault I’m not happier. Oh, and I could use a few more bucks.
-FringeGirl
Haha it is a pretty dumb test isn’t it? I am clearly not in sync with the rest of the country…almost ALL of my answers were the opposite of what the majority chose.
Lol, sounds like a bad bad quiz to me.
Personally my opinion of happy is it is a temporary state of mind.
It certainly can’t be judged by a quiz. lol
“Research shows having more sex makes you happier.”
SIGN ME UP!
I know, right? Is that why Oprah’s so smiley all the time?
I cracked up at the ‘knowing your neighbor’ comment in your post. I don’t want to know my neighbors in the biblical sense either. Eeew.
I’m going to skip the test for several reasons: 1) I don’t do well on tests, 2) I try to beat the system and cheat on any test I think is trying to get into my mind (it’s a scary place that no one should see
, and 3) I think I’m happy, and I’d be crushed if I found out I wasn’t and my whole sense of fulfillment was a lie!
Thanks for the laughs today, Tori!
I just knew I would cheat going into it. I’m happy in real life, and (after horribly skewed test answers), Oprah thinks I’m happy too. I’ll take it, I guess
On the plus side: skewing results to the Oprah Happiness Test is better (and less consequential/potentially fatal) than faking answers to the Animal Bites Questionnaire. Just saying!
Hahahahahahahaha. Oh that just made my morning. Rabies is no joke!
Pingback: In this analogy I am Gretel, and you are trying to bake me. « The Ramblings
Pingback: The Last Week of Oprah (and the world) « The Ramblings