Lucky Go Happy

General information

Lucky Go Happy follows the adventures of Lucky the rat who is sent on a quest by Lion into the African Bushveld to find out what makes other animals happy.

Through his encounters with some interesting characters, Lucky captures some refreshing new takes on happiness in his report which must be presented to Lion before the next rainy season starts. Lion hopes to regain his own happiness once Lucky reports back to him with his findings.

Lucky has quite a colourful background. Everyone expected him to climb the corporate ladder like other rats, by starting as a runner in a laboratory. From an early age however, he excelled at maths and it soon became evident that his passion for numbers would see him follow a different career. He worked hard in school and graduated top of his class; receiving the prestigious World Wildlife Fund study grant to further his education.

Lucky now teaches math at the African Bushveld Technical Academy where he works from nine to five. He gained acclaim across the Bushveld region since the publication of his first book entitled “Surviving Global Warming: Raft Building Techniques for Wingless Mammals.” Lucky is also happily married to his only wife and has two children.

After embarking on his quest, each chapter of Lucky Go Happy sees Lucky meeting an interesting character that shares their take on happiness.

There is Elephant, who practised homeopathy but faced a crisis after losing his tusks in a fight with another bull over the matriarg-in-waiting. Without his tusks he could no longer peel bark from trees, or dig up roots needed to make his medicine.

His practice deteriorated and eventually Elephant had to close the doors.
Elephant explains how Panda (who visited from China as part of a habitat scouting delegation) showed him that the Chinese word for crisis is made up of two different Chinese characters; the one representing danger and the other representing opportunity.

We often see only the danger element of the crisis and not the opportunity, Elephant explained to Lucky.

When faced by the crisis of losing his tusks, Elephant eventually saw the opportunity it presented. Having no tusks enabled him to become a surgeon, as he was able to get closer to his patients. Now he could reach the succulent leaves that are close to the bark with his tusks not being in the way anymore. Elephant also saved a small fortune on toothpaste, not to mention the time, by not having to brush his tusks any more.

Lucky also meets Baobab who is into carbon credit trading. Baobab wanted to be the first tree to see what lies outside of the valley where he lived. Baobab believed this would make him smarter and so earn the respect of other trees in the valley. Baobab essentially believed he would be happy once he was tall enough to see outside of the valley.

In pursuit of this goal, Baobab absorbed his minerals six times a day and took deep breaths of carbon dioxide whenever animals were around. He pushed his roots down to where no tree has ever gone in search of water.
Once Baobab was able to see outside the valley, the permanent state of happiness that he hoped for did not materialize. He realised that he missed out on happiness along the way, while being fixated on his goal.

Baobab missed his saplings growing up. He missed the day they broke ground and the day they got their first leaves. He was deaf to the sound of their laughter when the ants tickled their bark.

Lucky also encounters Buffalo, a market analyst who was retrenched following the economic crisis of 2008. Buffalo was contracted by swallows to analyse data they collected on humans in an effort to develop a strategy to counter the human onslaught on nature.
Buffalo analysed human spending habits and derived a curve that proves that money cannot buy happiness.

Through the encounters of Lucky the rat, Lucky Go Happy will:

• Show how we lose out on more than 70% of potential happy time by living for weekends;
• Explain how contentment can yield the same amount of happiness as ecstasy;
• Provide concrete proof that money can never make us happy;
• Highlight why it is absolutely essential to be unhappy at times;
• Illustrate how a midlife crisis happens;
• Provide the simple formula to calculate the amount of happiness, or unhappiness you experience;
• Show that happiness is not around the next corner; it is here and now;
• Help you understand how happiness works.
Lucky Go Happy is a modern-day fable full of witty humour that is written for teenagers and adults.

This easy-to-read book will equip readers with knowledge to be happier, and to be happy more often.

Rather than waiting for it, readers can make happiness happen for themselves, and for those around them!