The Enemies That Have Hijacked Us
When working on changing a habit, or an everyday addiction, we are up against powerful enemies.
These enemies have learned to hijack our natural impulses and use them for their own ends.
They have learned how to take our natural attraction for sweet and fatty things and turn this attraction into an addiction that undermines health, causing us to die younger and turn to expensive drugs to keep us going through the last third of our lives.
They have learned to turn our sense of community and connection into a compulsive need for "likes" and other forms of acknowledgment on social media. We spend our time glued to our screens trying to wrangle out acceptance and affirmation to enhance self-esteem.
They have taken our natural inquisitiveness and curiosity, our attraction for novelty, and used that to turn us into couch potatoes wielding a remote control. We spend our time searching for the next virtual experience to keep us entertained.
All of this impacts our sleep, health, and happiness.
We are like dogs in a laboratory pressing a lever over and over for a reward.
These enemies have hijacked the working of our brains.
They have studied how, why, and when our brains produce chemicals to make us feel good. These chemicals reward us for behavior that in the past supported our survival and evolution.
These enemies create labs to study our behaviors and reactions to stimuli. They study which of the five senses need to be stimulated, and when, to lead us to the behavior they so desire.
They spend billions to market these behaviors and manipulate our sense of discernment. What will motivate us to buy a particular product? The color of the package? The sound of the lid slipping off? The sweet aroma? They answer these questions with mathematical precision and then develop the levers to manipulate every facet of our lives.
What do we have to fight them with?
How do we resist them?
We need to go inward.
Our only weapon is our own capacity for self-awareness. This is our ability to stop and notice what is happening.
Our shield is our drive for self-determination. This is our desire to be more than a commodity mindlessly doing the bidding of what is marketed to us.
But to use these capacities, we have to wake up.