Some of this stuff going around on Instagram… such garbage. It’s all justification for whatever cockamamie bs people want to get themselves into.
“Just do what you want and the right people will love you.”
How ’bout you do what’s right, you twits?
“Spend time with people who are good for you.”
Here’s the problem: we don’t KNOW who’s good for us. Ask Charlie Manson’s followers. Ask Linda Pugach who married the man responsible for her being blinded (after the men he hired threw acid in her face — seriously go watch Crazy Love, if you never went to law school). Ask any drug addict whose partner got them into the life.
When you’re in the middle of something, your reasons and actions all seem justified. It’s subjective truth coming into conflict with the objective and, usually also, popular sentiment.
How about this one?:
Unfortunately, kids these days take that to mean “people who never disagree with me,” shutting off the potential for friendly discourse, growth, correction…
Think about the reaction teenagers have when their parents don’t like a friend or boyfriend/girlfriend. Think about the reaction that full-grown adults have when their beliefs or even political affiliations are challenged.
Yeah, they’re the same.
And how embarrassing to be on the same page as some pimply-faced, hormone-riddled teen!
Check out The Backfire Effect for a better understanding of why we humans do that. Then, look at how our brains work — either start here, or Google “brain processes” and just get to watchin’.
I beseech you:
- Take inventory – look at what you have in your life & what it does to your life
- Don’t be too proud or scared to make cuts
- Pay attention to results – they are hard to fake
- Don’t seek happiness or fulfillment from anyone or anything other than yourself
- Welcome different viewpoints, if not to incorporate into your own, then to expand your knowledge base
And most of all: Don’t trick yourself into thinking that none of this applies to you. We all have an ego. It makes us push away that which threatens it. Like Mark Twain said: “It’s easier to fool a man than to convince him he’s been fooled.”
Ego… what a tricky little bastard.
