You wake up from a nap to the news blaring; four pundits on four different sections of the screen with 3 banners on the bottom of the television going in opposite directions. Perturbed, you change the channel to hear a catchy feel-good jingle song about a popular product: They’re singing “buy this product and you’ll be happy” while subtly inducing fear shopping “don’t buy and you won’t be happy”. Aging but fit men prefer centrum, kids need “hatchimals”, cool-guys choose old spice. It’s the same story for every demographic: You need more.
Don’t like Ads? Get a pop-up blocker. Please disable your pop up blocker. Go to Amazon to listen to some tunes; you didn’t realize you were going to buy fly swatter 5000 today, but you did.
Later, your wife wants you to go grocery shopping with her. Why is healthy food so expensive? I’m not talking about organic “boutique” products, I’m talking about meat, fish, and vegetables. I have a large family. Your grocery store has a layout that’s designed to induce more spending, I mean if it’s a big retailer.
Does your medication have side effects? Take medication for those side effects. Make sure you eat every four hours, you don’t want to go into starvation mode. You need supplements, they help your recovery.
You’re either a republican or a democrat, there’s no middle ground these days you liberal snowflake republo-crat. Are you a bandwagon fan? We don’t take kindly to casual football fans; I’ve been a browns fan since the winter of ’79. Labels are fun. Do they accurately describe a select group and then degenerate into mindless name calling, or vice versa?
I get to skip the novice phase of lifting because I sprint and my job requires total fitness. And since I’m so weak, I’m still hitting PRs on my bad days. It’s all relative. Wait what was that about total fitness? Haha.
A way out:
Invest more money in education
Randomly pull citizens from their routines, much like a juror might be, and have them serve a term in the in a new section of congress
Stop watching the news, they’re sensationalist rating panderers.
Sounds like you are just starting to wake up. Congratulations, it takes mindfulness and awareness to see through the piles and piles of crap they try to pull over your eyes.
The Atlantic had an article about price discrimination, it was a pretty good read about maximizing profit. I like how you mentioned mindfulness, I was reading a t-nation article about that the other day.
Red pill or blue pill?
Not joking meditation completely changed my life. I was very skeptical (I like the head space app but free options are out there), got turned on by a Tim Ferris podcast where it talked about all the successful people who meditated.
Ten minutes in the morning and ten in the afternoon. Did more to decrease my stress levels and increase my focus on the job than anything I have ever done.
At various times through out my life I tend to unplug and shut it all down. I’ve gone several years at a time without television, internet and/or telephone.
Getting out into the woods and being on or around moving water really helps me to clear the slate and attenuate my senses too. Modern life really does blast garbage at people at an overwhelming rate.
You hit this one spot on!