People think that now that the year is 2008, that within the confines of the U.S. that there is no slavery. How wrong we all are. Take the time to think about it, do you really think that slavery does not exist? Maybe its not necessarily in the traditional form of shackles and chains, as what we picture when we first think of slavery, but its has materialized into a new breed of slavery.
Most of us have a preconceived notion of wealth and perfection. We look at all of the magazines on the racks in the grocery stores and the department stores. We see pictures of movie stars, media celebrities, and musicians. We see them driving around in their porche’s, Lamborghini’s, and phantoms. We see them cruising around the world in luxury and style. We see their little bobble headed women on stick figure bodies with tanned skin. This is what is portrayed to us as the attainable American Dream.
Some of us actually “buy” into this pursuit of happiness. We begin to think that perfection is attainable. We think that becoming a millionaire, or wealthy, is something that can be achieved with enough hard work and dedication.
So we go to school, get educated, graduate, get a job, and try to progress as fast and as much as we can in order to get more money. We find ourselves becoming more “wired and connected” to work and our professions. When you meet someone new, they typically ask what is your name, and then its followed by what do you do? The majority of us begin to morph into this being that defines ourselves by the work that we do, the places we have worked, and the materials that we have collected. It becomes a race to see how much, how fast, and how expensive one can out do the other person.
Cell phones, emails, laptops, and blackberry’s were supposed to make us more productive and spend less time in the office. In reality it has made us more reachable on a 24/7 basis to our work and to our bosses. Instead of expecting the same, they expect more productivity with less workforce. Its not Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. Now its Sunday through Saturday, 24 hours a day.
So we find ourselves becoming a slave to our jobs. We can be white collar or blue collar slaves. We both go to work, we both try to please our superiors, we both try to prove our value and importance to our bosses, we are both locked into a time frame in which we need to perform a certain task or tasks by a certain time frame. All of it is done in hopes of pleasing our masters enough so that they will deem it appropriate to give us a bit more money. As we climb the ladder in financial gain, the tighter that collar becomes around our neck. It doesn’t matter if its blue or white, it becomes tighter and tighter as we begin to climb the rungs on that ladder of materialism and gain.
We have become slaves to what the “media” portrays to us. The reason why one goes on a diet is vastly because one is trying to attain the perfect body. One is trying to look like someone that is on a magazine cover. Why? Why do we allow that to define to us what is perfection, desirable, or sexy? Why is it that a woman can not look into the mirror and think to them self, “I am intelligent, I am curvy, I am witty, I can debate, I am sexy, and I am desirable.” Think if every single female in the world could wake up in the morning and state this to them-self, and actually believe it. Would there be a crisis of depression, bulimia, anorexia, domestic abuse, or anxiety? Why do women feel as if they have to do it all? Have a career, kids, home makers, president of the PTA, and look like a bobble head waif?
Why is it that we as males can not show our emotions? Why is it that we are less of a man if we listen to a woman, are in touch with our feelings, can cry, can communicate effectively with others, can stop and admit we are lost and ask for directions? Why do we feel that we need to be tall, chisled, and tanned in order to be desirable to the female species? Why is it that we feel we need to undercut those that are supposed to be our friends and colleagues in order to get ahead? Does it really matter the size of my bank account, my 401K, the car I drive, the clothes I wear, the watch I buy, or the resolution of my TV screen?
Advertising in “Our” society has become like a gun. All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction. We have a nation of young men and women that want to focus all of their potential on something, to give their lives to something. The mass media has given all of these men and women the purpose of chasing cars and homes and clothes that they don’t really need. We have become slaves to work in order to attain things that we really don’t need.
We become slaves to our want for things that we see in advertisements. The men in college that used to sit in the bathroom stalls looking at playboys and hustlers are now looking at their IKEA and Potterybarn catalogs.
We all buy furniture thinking this is the last sofa I will ever need. We buy it, we get it home, and after a few years we find that no matter what happens, we are satisfied because at least we have the sofa figured out. Then its the right set of dishware, then the perfect sheets, the right silverware, the drapes, the welcome home rug. Before we realize it, we become slaves to our home and the things in it. Finding comfort and safety inside. When we get upset, we can come home and find comfort. We then discover that the things in which we used to own, now they own us.
Perhaps its only after we lose everything that we are truly free to do anything? At times our lives seem to be complete, happy, safe. Maybe its at those very times in life that we need to break everything in order to make something better out of ourselves?
Perhaps self improvement is not the key to life, but rather, self destruction. Not in the sense of going out and getting hooked on crack or alcohol, but in the sense of waking up every morning and tearing down the idealism of what we have been led to believe as the truth in the media. Trying to reprogram ourselves so that we are not slaves to our job, or trying to collect material things that we do not need or that really do not matter in life. Maybe we need to awake each morning and destruct a piece of that ideal that we thought was perfection, and in doing so, we find freedom in pursuing true perfection. The pursuit of free thinking, living spherically, and allowing our hearts to be open to all. Perfection is unattainable, but the pursuit we can attain.
Or maybe, just maybe, perfection is finding out that living with our own imperfections is the nirvana that man has sought since the beginning of time?
May I never be complete, may I never be content, may I never be perfect. Physically I may not be a beautiful and unique snowflake. Physically we are all the same decaying organic matter. Perhaps in realizing this, it sets my mind free, and it allows me to think differently then others, and in doing so, I see a reality that no one else can see. Perhaps that makes me unique and different then.
Don’t be perfect. Do not be slaves to your job and the media. Do not allow someone else to define you. See perfection in imperfections. Be happy with who and how you are. Improve for the self, and not because of persuasion.
Quit being a modern day slave.
“See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little.” ~Pope John XXIII
