“Until you make the unconscious conscious,
it will direct your life
and you will call it fate.”
— Carl Jung
Aimlessness’s only outcome is entropy.
Opting out of consciously directing our lives does not in turn opt us out of the overall Game of Life. Life continues around us with or without our active participation. No one gets to be an NPC in Life. You’re either directing your thoughts, energy, and actions or someone/thing else is.
Of every tool at our disposal, the mind is by far the most powerful. Unlike other tools, however, the mind is always on and always active. Therefore, we must monitor and maintain our mind and our thoughts. Otherwise, myriad others are working tirelessly to take ownership of your thoughts.
We are being constantly sold things. Every minute of every day. Our minds are under constant attack via advertising, technology, and even our friends. All of which are vying for our time and attention and hoping to rewire our desires and impulses.
It’s a lot easier to see when we are being sold a thing. When the goal of the mental hijacker is to drive us toward a real-world purshase. My better half calls it “being Gramboozled.” We’re flicking our screens all day and seeing these things we don’t have and the creatives behind the ads and the technology understand how to associate these things to reward centers in our minds. Whether we know it or not, we are being programmed to feel like we need these things.
It’s not always just stuff. Nor is it just advertisers. Sometimes the goal is just to keep us in competition, driving each other to appear better than. Sometimes it us. We are actively contributing to the endless FOMO cycle. Think of how most of us curate our online lives to appear as exciting and happy as they possibly can. We share our highlight reels with the world. Meanwhile, we’re looking at each others’ feeds and comparing their highlights, not to our highlights, but to our regular ass, mundane real-world situations.
I’m over here paying bills and developing IBS while ol’ so-and-so is posting pics from the beach; nevermind that we think we saw those same pics last year—beacuse they are from last year. We know that, but we’re allowing our mind to feel left out and less than.
And it’s that kind of thinking that spirals us into mental rubbernecking and eventual collisions.
We’ve allowed the machinations of someone—person or entity—to guide our thinking. And whomever controls the thought, controls the action.
We have to get into the driver’s seat of our own lives; our own minds.
Otherwise, who knows where we’re headed. But, I can’t imagine it’s where any of us wanted to go.