You don’t have to do what you were taught. We are more than our programming or we are nothing.
What am I talking about? I am talking about all of the programming that you have received in your life about what was expected of you as a person. Is it any surprise that insincerity bothers us in others, when we are first insincere to ourselves?
Yes, you are reading this from a social network, but we were human before the internet and social networks. What this means is that we don’t have to “go with the flow” when the flow isn’t helping us individually and as a species.
We know the harm that social media can do, and we need to be wise about using it. We don’t need to sell ourselves out for short-term gain and long-term unhappiness. There is a rising risk of cancer and diseases and it is clear that this is happening not only because we have polluted our environment, but first we polluted our thoughts/being. We have allowed trash into our lives and toxic things that we are trying to normalize and it just doesn’t work.
We need sufficient sleep, financial security, safety, and all of those basic needs and more to thrive and contribute as a person. If we don’t have that we buy things hoping to fill a hole in our lives. Yet those purchases make us feel more empty because now we have something else to maintain and think about rather than what is most important.
Why do we act contrary to our best interests? Why would you want to elect someone who doesn’t care about those who help him or society as a whole? Why would we support someone incapable of making decisions that help others? Why would you support someone who can only think about themselves?
Or is it rather that in your desire for authoritarianism and security, you are willing to trade freedom and liberty? That doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me. We can be more than our environment. I am proof of that. I grew up in a racist and small-minded environment but I didn’t let it define me. I knew there was more than that, and there is. Don’t limit yourself or you will be as miserable as those people who always seek to find security in controlling others.