There is a great deal of pressure from all over the modern world, at every stage of life, trying to "tell" you what you need to do or be, to be happy.
Exercise equipment commercials tell you that you need to buy that crazy bowflex contraption to get rock solid abs. (You dont. Equipment just helps, and you can often get the same results doing home exercises without such a thing, and actually going to a gym comes with other advantages, if that's your goal.)
Car commercials try to tell you that you wont pick up hot chicks unless you cruise around inside a mercedes, or a porche. (Again, a load of bull.)
Even little children aren't spared, commercials for toys and games making it appear that an entire universe of playtime fun could be theirs, if only their parents would buy them said toy. (I used to know a kid when I was young, with every shelf of his room packed with toys. He never played with them, as he quickly grew bored with them, and always wanted the new thing.)
The over-arching question I have come to use as the bullshit test for such assertions, is "What do the people making the claim GET out of making such a claim?"
With TV commercials, that's easy-- they are making BS claims to get your money. Could be kitchen gadgets, Self-help books for people battling depression, commercials for clearly dangerous but shiny and new pharmecuticals. Whatever. In every case, there is a clear cut profit motive.
Ironically, the same is true for many people asserting that "You need to be able to do X, in order to be successful at Y!" (with the implication that if you DONT try to be successful at Y, then you are a lazy sloucher and a drain on everyone.)
A GREAT example of this, was when I was still at university. At the time, I had ambitions of being an IT person. (I am older, and at the time IT was more glamorous than it is now--- and better paid.) While doing the obviously really real core material classes for being a well rounded IT person, I had a clearly red-headed stepchild thrown into the curriculum by the school. "Microsoft Office User Support Education." Basically, while learning how to reprogram CISCO routers, how to diagnose and repair common computer problems, fix laser printers, and splice my own ethernet cables, the corporate overloads that hire IT people wanted IT people to also serve as tier 1 helpdesks for people who dont know how to make text bold, or insert a page break in an MS Word document. For real. The class was mandatory, and when I inquired why, I was basically told as such-- local businesses explicitly asked {demanded} for its inclusion. So, "If you want to be an essential IT person, you need to be able to do Mary in HR's job too-- AND tell her how to do it, when she forgets!"
The reason? If they can get their already overworked IT drones to handle Maryanne, and her swisscheese memory-- concerning how to do her damn job, that she supposedly does EVER DAY, and has been doing EVERY DAY for the past 12 years, like her resume says--- But somehow STILL cant remember that the little bolded B on the standard tool panel makes text BOLD--- then they dont have to hire somebody else to nanny her 24-7, which saves them money.
That's right-- the "A good IT person can "Assist" Maryanne when she has a question" is really just cloak and dagger for "We want you to be able to do any job we want to throw at you, but still pay you peanuts-- and you are a bad IT employee if you cant/wont let us do that."
The same is basically true for just about any other "Demanded" or "pressured" skill. There is always a reason why that other person is pressuring you to get it, and it almost certainly isn't for YOUR benefit.
If you despise the skill being demanded, you will despise doing the work. How does this make you happier, healthier, and more prosperous? It doesnt. It makes somebody else happier, healthier, and more prosperous. Who is that somebody else, and why do they feel that they are justified making such a demand?
Instead, look at what YOU, PERSONALLY enjoy doing. What are YOUR interests? What are YOUR skills?
Much of the unhappiness in the modern world today comes from people trying to adapt to an ever homogenizing system, that turns vibrant and interesting people into monotonous, interchangeably fungible drones. (Because doing so makes somebody else A LOT of money!) The world tries to tell you that this is necessary-- that without your compliance, "The system" will fail, and other such horror stories. Really, look at the "The system" more honestly. Who does it REALLY profit? For 99% of people in the world, it ISNT THEM. Who profits from commercials for antidepressants, aimed at people who suffer from depression because they feel hopeless and worthless, because they have lost their senses of self and self worth? Do the sufferers benefit, trying to prop up their souls with happy pills, or do the drug companies, who only have a market for those drugs to begin with, because people are unhappy in epidemic proportions?
Personally, I'd say it is the latter, and that they have a very strong profit motive to keep people clinically depressed, and propped up on their drugs perpetually. Nevermind that they almost certainly perpetuate the same deleterious conditions in their own employees, by driving them ever harder to be more and more productive and flexible with less and less, so somebody in a fancy office can get a bigger paycheck in the multiple billions of dollars this year, and so some greedy and sociopathic people with stock portfolios don't "Lose confidence."
Do you want to really be happy, and successful?
Ignore those fuckers. Be yourself. Revel in being yourself. Do what YOU enjoy doing, and if possible, make a living doing it. Be a vibrant and unique individual in the endless field of grey drones. Doing so will make you stand out, and will give you opportunities you didn't have before.
Only YOU know who and what YOU are. As such, only YOU know what makes you happy, what makes you feel good, and what makes you feel good about yourself. Why on earth would you EVER listen to a self-serving outside opinion, trying to tell you that you are wrong about something so innately personal?
Give any advice or edict about what you should or shouldn't do the "Profit motive bullshit test". It will help you to filter out all the sociopaths trying to get you to do what THEY want done, while you suffer in obscurity. It will help you to be yourself, and be a happier, more satisfied person.
Author
Topic: The pressure to improve is making me john the caveman. (Read 6198 times)