1.
Debt
Debt is the modern form of the
slavery of old.
The amount of debt in America alone
is staggering, and unfortunately the next few younger
generations will feel the brunt of this impending disaster.
There really is no way for an individual to mitigate the public
debt incurred just by being born a US citizen, and right now,
each American already owes something
between $50,000 and $200,000 to the national debt, depending
on how this is calculated.
However, personal debt is within the
control of the individual and stands as one of the most
freedom-limiting and stress-inducing aspects of modern life.
Our
predatory lending system
deliberately targets young people at an early age to purchase
anything and everything with easy credit and credit cards, and
there is tremendous peer pressure to live a fabulously
materialistic lifestyle.
In addition to
credit card debt, the amount of debt that young people take
on to participate in college is exorbitant, and this system is
intrinsically designed to generate heaps of profit for the
banking system and the US government, and it unnecessarily
saddles young people with life long financial commitments that
can weigh them down for decades.
There are many free and affordable
options for gaining a higher education nowadays, and with
consideration and commitment it is perfectly possible for young
people to live an
enjoyable life without dependence on credit cards.
2.
Materialism and Consumerism
Made possible by access to easy
credit and triggered by a predatory marketing infrastructure,
one of the greatest conformity traps for young people today is
the encouragement to develop a lifestyle centered around the
purchasing of goods that people don't even need to survive.
Often, the drive for materialism is
born of an encouraged psychological condition that both creates
unhappiness while covering up unhappiness.
It is a road to nowhere, and the
feelings of liberty that come from maintaining fewer material
possessions is one of the truest and most attainable forms of
liberty today.
Rejecting the consumptive and
materialistic patterns that govern modern society is a keen
habit to develop so that one can truly discover who they are and
what their role is in this world.
3.
Addiction to Drugs and Alcohol
Our culture strongly encourages
people, especially our youth, to conform to a lifestyle centered
around,
-
drinking
-
drug use
-
'partying'
While this certainly might be fun to
a degree, there is tremendous pressure for young people to
assimilate these rituals as lifelong habits, which can
shamefully trap a person at an early age, and prohibit
opportunities and good health later in life.
Furthermore, this is an assault on
positive mental and physical health, meaning that
over-indulgence early on in life can cause serious health and
psychological issues later on.
Moderation has become a four letter
word in our world, but should be developed at an early age so
that one can live in balance with the social pressures we all
face.
4.
Hyper/Over Sexuality
Primarily a design of the marketing
industry which sprang up in the early part of the 20th century
as part of a push towards mass-consumerism, our culture is
ridiculously overly sexualized and pornographic.
Marketers and psychologists realized
that sex and sexual images are the number one way to trigger
false desires within a person to inspire them to desire needless
material objects.
This problem continues to get worse
with our insane mainstream media who ceaselessly produces
shallow images of lust and hyper-sexuality that chip away at a
young person's self image and esteem, encouraging them to
objectify others and allow themselves to be objectified by
others.
Life shouldn't be this way, and sex
and the human body should be treated with dignity and respect,
both qualities that must be nurtured as a person matures to
adulthood.
Recognizing the blatant effort to
over-sexualize marketing and entertainment at an early age can
give someone the opportunity to view these cultural pressures
with skepticism and caution, preventing them from getting trap
in shallow trap of hyper-sexualization.
5.
Mediocrity
We have, sadly, become a nation of
the mediocre, and the idea of American ingenuity and
exceptionalism has been completely hollowed out.
Young people are encouraged to fit
in and conform to what others are doing, too often in resulting
the over-achievement of the lowest common denominator, which is
typically a sincere focus on base desires rather than on the
development of virtuous qualities that bring opportunity.
Entertainment based living has
become the norm and now mediocrity in effort, mediocrity in
ambition, and mediocrity in expectation are contributing to
severe cultural decline.
Human beings are capable of so much
and to conform to mediocrity is to miss out discovering one's
true potential in life.
6.
Corporate Work Slaves
The
education system we have was designed by industrialists and
social engineers to produce people who are more suited to be
workers than free-thinkers and revolutionaries.
More than ever, Westerners live
meaningless lives of servitude to corporations, often performing
mind-numbing and redundant jobs on an oppressive schedule
without ever growing to know what true happiness and fulfillment
really is.
Due to the economic stranglehold
that a corrupt banking and monetary system has on our society,
many people think that the only option they have in life is to
get whatever job they can obtain, all too often forgoing
self-examination,
spiritual cultivation and worldly experience in favor of the
false sense of security offered by corporate America.
A life of corporate work is not
exactly a life of service, and young people should instead be
encouraged to set out on a path of self-discovery in search of
creative inspiration rather than a mediocre life of commitment
to robotic corporate work.
The rat race is failing us all while
keeping us boxed into the addictive consumer mindset that has
dangerous ecological repercussions.
Rather than being encouraged to 'get
a job' people would be better suited to first figure out what
they are good at and love, then pursue education and training
based on the contribution they'd like to make to the world.
Not all jobs are bad, of course, but
the societal design of pushing young people to be part of a
frivolous workforce in order to contribute to an overly consumeristic and unhealthy society should be recognized for
what it is, a subtle form of slavery.
7.
Poor Health & Medical Dependence
The standard American diet and
lifestyle breeds stress, disease, unhappiness and dependence on
a corrupt health system and pharmaceutical companies to cope.
Advertising and marketing are aimed
at turning people into unhealthy dependents, but young people
should instead be encouraged to care for and strengthen their
bodies and minds rather than waste away in sedentary lifestyles
consuming toxic poisons instead of
real food.
Habits are set an early age, and the
sooner a person can adopt the habits that breed good health and
a positive mental attitude, the happier and more enjoyable their
lives will be in the short and long run.
8.
Contemporary Consciousness
Human physiology supports amazing
potential for consciousness and elevated perspectives.
However, and without question, there
is a
war on consciousness right now that seeks to limit a
person's perception of what life can and should be about.
This trap is set by
government/corporate propaganda and Draconian laws, is
reinforced by the psychological warfare that is
mainstream media, and is traditionally looked over by
tired
religions and aging dogmatic assertions that grant phony
authority to anyone who joins an agency or organization that
issues fancy uniforms.
By seizing control of the mind and
one's consciousness, and learning to protect one's self from
unseen negative influences, young people can set themselves on
an enlightening path that will forever offer solace and reward,
preventing them from becoming prey to the conformist
fear-mongering that defines modern Western culture.
9.
Social Conformity
By far the most insidious conformist
trap that keeps young people from developing to their full
potential is the pressure that we as individuals put on each
other.
Seemingly a natural feature of the
human psyche, people fear being different from other people more
than anything else. This type of conformity has us policing each
other on behalf of organizations that betray us all, and is the
primary source of dangerous group-think.
In these interesting times, when
humankind seems to be determined to snuff itself out with its
own stupidity, developing the self-confidence and assuredness to
think beyond the box should be our most prized virtue.
