Preferences are born inside of you every day. When someone is rude to you, you decide that you prefer better company. When traffic is bad, you decide to take a different route next time. When you see injustice in the world, you decide, what, exactly?
In these physical bodies, it is impossible to stop developing toward something because it is impossible to hit the ‘pause button’ on life. Because there is no ‘pause button,’ you are always moving toward something whether you deliberately decide to or not.
In fact, the unstoppable instinct to develop preferences and then move toward them is what drives the evolution of our species. Your constant sifting and sorting through possibilities and preferences guarantees all our survival.
Depending on your point of view, it can be a shared burden or a shared blessing, but it is a responsibility, nonetheless.
I have more good news for you; creating a desire and moving toward it is the best source of satisfaction this life can offer. All external joy springs forth from having a preference and then creating momentum towards that preference.
Really, life is just an expansive, never-ending dance. You can manage by just going through the motions and looking at your feet, but it becomes delicious when your head is up, you know the steps, and you know how to improvise and create new preferences on the fly.
You were born a formidable creator of reality and your work matters so much that rejecting it feels awful; apathy and resentment are common emotions for people that don’t accept their power. These people either assume they are at the effect of an unfair world, like a feather blowing in a cruel wind, or they mindlessly just create by default.
Creating by default means deciding to be reactive instead of proactively developing a preference and moving towards it in a way that will see it come to fruition.
Like the traffic analogy, life will always cause you to take notice of things that you don’t want, and it’s natural to feel discontent from those things. Nobody is asking you to look injustice in the face and shrug with a smile.
In that pivotal moment, however, you have a choice: expand into something greater, or stay resentful. Everyone, no matter their background or creed, faces that same choice each day. In that sense, life is always fair. This revelation should thrill you because it means you possess the same power as anyone else.
Understanding the expansive flow of life is so important for two reasons. First, it underlies the crucial need for purpose in every person’s life. Secondly, it unlocks the secret to prosperity that we all are seeking.
Unfortunately, the process from preference to manifestation is rife with manipulation. In fact, it is at this exact intersection— between the biological imperative to keep moving and the desire to be prosperous to survive— that most of our social woes begin. The reason is because the secret to this process of prosperity has been bastardized by all sorts of folks since the dawn of time.
Do those who give bad advice mean well or do they intend to take advantage of you? Either way, the bad advice always boils down to the same lie; to be successful, you must first suffer.
Not only must there be suffering, but it would be extra sweet if you can punish those who made you suffer as well. “You need to crack a few eggs to make an omelet,” they say. It’s a toxic mix of creating by default and blowing in the wind.
We can debate the fine line between ignorance and subversion, but the truth is that we weren’t born as manipulators. The way we act is always learned from others and taught by those in power over us. Sifting and sorting through other peoples’ opinions, like your parents,’ is necessary. It’s how preferences, and therefore desires, are born.
However, a certain class of people intentionally manipulate. If you had to guess, which business would you say they gravitate towards?
Politics is a business that takes advantage of every bad piece of advice you’ve ever received. It feeds on your traumas, your identities, and your personal dishonesty. It knows that most Americans lead desperate lives of cynicism. More so, politicians understand that it’s a business built on problems rather than solutions.
Often, when people claim to want change, they mean they want the world to change around them, not that they’re willing to make the change themselves. Yet, the only person that anyone ever has complete control over is themselves. Therefore, the game for good politicians becomes how do we perpetuate the destructive feelings that humans already choose daily?
This way, the problems never cease to exist, and people never expand out of their stead in life. Even though politicians and media pundits claim they want to live in a better world, there is little money in the cure, and they want customers for life.
By demonizing a political rival and making their presence a danger to society, the manipulator can give susceptible voters both a faux purpose in life (“Resist!”) and a false key to prosperity.
The coping mentalities that arise from a life steeped in outrage, like antipathy and victimization, pay a dividend of emotional energy that addicted minds will keep coming back for like a rat in a cage. Do you see how politicians’ tactics form the opposite methods of reaching fulfillment that we outlined above? Yet, it works like magic.
I call this phenomenon the Mirror because it fuels this entire overwrought political machine of discontent that we find ourselves living within. The Mirror proves the adage, “the bigger the lie, the easier it is to be believed.”
So, then, what is the answer to escaping the hamster wheel of manipulation without unplugging from the culture completely? Reading political commentary that doesn’t come with a financial agenda to make you despise your neighbor is a good start. Learning to spot obvious emotional manipulation is important too.
However, the best way to change your world without succumbing to the subversions of the ruling class is the two methods discussed earlier. First, find a purpose. Then, expand toward it with focused intention. This way, you become immune to the trappings of negativity because you aren’t working within the Mirror’s confines.
You’ll be living an authentic life rooted in success, which breeds passionate independence. Herein lies the secret to prosperity that so many come into this life understanding as instinct, but slowly forget thanks to a world that bleeds it out of them.
And this is the secret; you cannot arrive at a wanted destination by taking an unwanted journey to get there. Simply put, you should care about how you feel, always.
You must begin rejecting the small hit of outrage dopamine you feel from getting mad on Twitter, instead choosing to feel positivity despite circumstance.
Every time you focus on anything which makes you feel poorly, you expand into a reality in which you are guaranteed to keep feeling poorly. That’s why it is integral to prefer happiness, rather than to choose anger, resentment, and discontent.
This is how entire identity groups get stuck in generational strangleholds. New promises come and go, but nothing really changes, in D.C. or in your own neighborhood. It’s a vicious cycle that’s all by design.
Leading by example is the only way to change the injustices of modern life. Others will see your prosperity and gravitate upwards towards it. In that loving headspace, free from the psychological burden of political pain, they become a better version of themselves, and the entire world prospers because of it.
Remember, life is fair; you always have the choice to expand.
