Sometimes I feel like we're all living in a Brave New World. We take our Soma on the daily as recommended through hypnosis marketing on televisions, on billboards, in schools, hospitals and banks.
Do you know anyone who doesn't watch television? I know a few. Not many. But to be honest, even I saw them at first as a little strange. I mean what the heck would you do with yourself? I did spend a year television free many many years ago. But I was working in the car business and working easily sixty hours a week. So who had time for television?
It's funny to me, that for that year--though I wasn't being hypnotized by television advertisements--I was most definitely taking part in hypnosis at work. I was selling cars.... selling the wonderment that is owning a new car. "Make them own it....create the feeling of ownership", "you're selling peace of mind." This is what we were taught. Hypnosis or simply suggestive selling? And then there's the 'assumptive close' that I hear people trying all the time in other industries. A woman walks into her baby's first Doctor's visit and sees several syringes loaded and ready. It's simply assumed she's there for vaccinations though it's still optional.
Do you know anyone without a credit card? Oh boy .. immediate red flag. Why wouldn't a person have a credit card? Bankruptcy is really the only reason that we can think of, because our whole world revolves around and requires us to play this game. I'm serious here. I spent about four years without credit. I went bankrupt. Did what I said I'd never do. Did what I judged in others in the years past. A friend just commented how much of an 'about-face' I've done in recent years. Boy she ain't kiddin'! And to think that back then in my business attire, driving my new car, with my fancy business cards to hand out, I was just a pawn working for someone else and believing I was helping my customers. As the young couple from B.C. stated, was I just helping the banks rip customers off?
So, life without a credit card. Well it's just life with one different aspect ~ only buy what you can pay for at the moment of purchase with cash. It teaches you something. On the negative, it teaches you humility when you have to beg your mother or sister to book a hotel room or car rental with her credit card. It teaches you anger management when you realize that the health shake you want to buy online requires you to have a credit card. Without a doubt, you are more aware of how much money you have and how much money you're spending. Unlike how I am now where I don't really keep track of how much money I have at any one time. It's a different mindset. Law of attraction in the works? When I was broke all I could think about was what I needed. When I'm comfortably flush, there isn't a thing I really need. It's freaky and it scares me to think that the people in Government have likely never seen this perspective, never felt what I've just described and yet are the ones making the rules to help us.
And for the most part, I don't see the macro of it all. It takes me to delve into the blues of bitterness before I see the whole thing as a wicked wicked game. We're all being hypnotized into thinking we have to buy shit to be happy. Commercials and adverts in magazines that show people laughing and happy with their new purchase are laughable-- "Oh thank goodness the boots I'm wearing are good for hiking Mount Everest ... not sure if my rent will be paid, but damn I look good in these boots!" And don't even get me started on the commercials for vaccines and pharmaceutical medications. Undue influence. Doctors hate when you self-diagnose, but self-prescribing is okay?
Conversely, I guess you can't exercise the choice that I roar about, if they don't advertise it right? Okay, but salespeople in all industries are pushed to push you into buying. I was taught that I had the ability to influence how much money you spent. There are words you can use, there are suggestions you can make, there are feelings you can evoke that influences the customers' decisions. That's unethical really, when you think about it. We're being influenced and hypnotized into over-spending and yet we're marginalized and penalized when we do. Gifts with purchase work on adults not just with Happy Me@ls, and subscriptions that require cancellation by you should be outlawed! Sell the lifestyle. Ugh such bullshit. The first dealership I ever worked at, told us to never give monthly payments, and not to discuss the person's ability to afford the car; that was the Business Manager's job.
Undue influence will be the unmaking of our freedom of individuality, our self-sustainability, and in the end our ability to simply live a life we enjoy and own as long as the rent is paid. What do we do about it? Am I just wasting my time by simply writing about it? Am I a hypocrite because I am now once again playing the game and re-building my credit?
No ... you can take part in the game and yet not be fooled by it, controlled by it, hypnotized by it.
Being aware of it helps you see the truth. The truth is that you are great just as you are. There are a million ways to be as Yusuf Islam sings, and he was right.
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