You've Been Lied to for Generations, It's Time to Stop Listening

You've been consistently lied to and it’s still happening. You’re lied to so much and with such conviction, the lies have become reality, they have morphed into innate truths and are consumed without question.

They told you if you worked hard and got good exam results, a shiny and fulfilling career would be waiting for you. Forget your dreams, walk our guaranteed path instead.

Yet, when you got to the end of the road and asked where your career was, you were told, "Society doesn't owe you a living."

They told you if you worked hard in your job, you could buy a nice house.

When you asked why you can't even afford the deposit on a property, and why there isn't more affordable housing, you were told by millionaires you simply buy too much avocado on toast.

Your peers in the same boat tell you to blame baby-boomers for having the audacity to continue living in a house they bought on a modest salary 49 years ago.

Blame, in-fight, divide.

They told you to get a stable income, become a lawyer, an accountant, to have a respectable occupation. They told you the purpose of life was to keep your head down and work for 60 years to enjoy the secular afterlife of retirement.

When you asked "Surely there's more to life than just getting through it?" they told you to be grateful you're employed at all in these uncertain times.

They told you whole foods such as eggs, milk and meat are bad for you, but they push granola bars, oat milk and vegetable burgers as "health foods" when they're heavily processed and laden with sugars and seed oils.

When you ask why heart disease, obesity, strokes and diabetes are at record high levels, you're told to remember eggs are as bad as cigarettes.

When a 7-year-old child can’t sit quietly in school, we're told they need to be medicated because they have an attention and hyperactivity disorder.

When you ask for proof of diagnosis they tell you they took a questionnaire and besides, it's common in children and this is standard practice.

Standard practice is not to be questioned.

When you tell them you're a good person, they tell you to feel guilty.

Feel guilty about the environment when factories and developing nations pump out millions of tons of pollution every hour.

Feel guilty about police brutality in nations you don't live in.

Feel guilty about systematic sexism in the entertainment industry you're not a part of.

Feel guilty about the checkered history of your nation even though you weren't born.

Feel guilty about having money because others don't, but also feel guilty when you're poor because we live in a meritocracy and therefore it's your fault.

They tell you to be yourself, then feed your brain with thousands of adverts a day explaining why your life is lacking unless you buy more shit.

They told you a social media platform will make you happy by connecting you to others.

When you point to the overwhelming data showing social media drives up unhappiness and mental health problems, they tell you its the users who are using it wrong.

The tech-giants all lean left and claim to be liberal entities for good.

When you ask why they all have conservative tax avoidance policies you're told they're private entities who don't need to be answerable to the public.

When are you going to stop listening and take back responsibility for your life and thoughts?

You are under attack from the "10,000 things" that have nothing to do with you.

You can carry the weight of the world on your shoulders and play it safe, small, consume, endlessly apologise, feel guilt, feel responsible, feel fear.

Or you can be the change you want to see. You can save yourself from the circus of society by simply choosing differently.

There is nothing more powerful in the world than a made-up mind.

You can live with love and faith, to refuse to be scared, refuse to be guilty, and be the change you want to see.

By doing this you save yourself, and you will save others, if only by example.

You were lied to. It's not your fault. We're all products of the reality to which we were presented, but you are only one decision away from a totally different life.

You must become sovereign in yourself, in your integrity. Caring about issues is most effectively done by being the change. 

How else can the world really be improved? A megaphone or a burning car will only compound rage and division. Acting with non-judgmental integrity for your own sake will do the opposite.

Ignore the noise. There is plenty of division on the horizon. No old man in a suit is going to save you, no matter what colour his flag or his tie.

You must save yourself.

Go within. That's where your truth lies. It's between you and the universe. You've been lied to but your intuition never will lie to you. It cannot because it is you. The real you.

This isn't a manifesto for not caring, it's a manifesto for untethering yourself from all the things that aren't you. 

Society benefits from your misery. It profits from your neurosis.

What they don't tell you is no one has consumed their way to happiness. 

Don't get mad, get free.

Don't play it small, play it huge.

Find yourself, go within, listen to your heart. Be the best version of yourself.

That is the real act of rebellion.