It's January 1st again. So we're going to hear our friends and loved-ones make resolutions. We're going to see the social media "motivational" posts talking about their resolutions. We've heard it all before (or read it on our friends' social media):
This year, I resolve to:
lose weight
be more positive
make 'self-care' a priority
save more money
make more money
cut out 'toxic' people
eat more healthy
drink less alcohol
drink more water
exercise more
be more fit
There's nothing wrong with setting goals. I admire and respect people who take the steps required to better themselves and their lives. The problem with
resolutions is that most are not SMART.
They're not specific and extremely vague.
Success and progress are difficult to measure because most people don't give themselves the proper steps to take to get their goals. Most resolutions makers can be so overly enthusiastic and motivated that the goals they set for themselves aren't achievable
and realistic. Even if you measure your progress, you realize that you can't reach your lofty goal and you end up getting discouraged.
Of course, most people making resolutions don't give themselves
a proper time frame to achieve and succeed. Meaning that because they don't give themselves deadlines, they end up simply meandering instead of achieving what they set out to do.
Aside from the quality of the resolutions, if you really thought that whatever you're resolving to do was important, you wouldn't be waiting for an arbitrary day of the year to start doing it. You'd be working on that goal right now. You would have made it a priority already and adjusted your habits accordingly. You already would have been looking for ways to stay focused and disciplined to achieve your goals. You wouldn't be relying on "motivational" pictures and videos while going on social media to tell everyone that "New year, new me" will so totally happen in 2020.
Becoming a good person who contributes to society is difficult, as outlined in a previous post. It requires a change in mindset, a change in attitudes and acting according to rules. Making that change can also mean that you will face consequences from friends, family and even the authorities. There will always be a cost to being a "good person". It's actually far easier to LOOK like someone who's virtuous without actually making the sacrifices. So, in order to gain social brownie points, you'll need to be effective at signaling your virtue to both your digital and analog social circles.
Here are a few easy tips on how to do that.
1) Be Offended and Outraged
You have a lot of options here. You can be offended about jokes. You can be outraged at the lack of racial/gender/religious/sexual orientation/physical size/disability/dietary choice "representation" in films and TV shows. You can complain about public figures' comments, or lack thereof, on a given controversial topic that they have no expertise on. You can complain about the insensitivity of Halloween costumes.
Of course, even if you're not part of the group that you believe is being victimized by the offensive piece of content, you shouldn't be shy to show how offended and outraged you are. After all, if you're not part of that underprivileged group, you can still be an "ally" to that group. You can use your "position of privilege" to help the cause.
You know, because people that are different from you have no agency at all and will always require your help.
2) Take to the Streets and Protest
Historically, protesting on the streets has been a great way to get governments to take action. This worked in the past when trying to get a dictator to step down from power or to have specific laws changed. It's eventually worked for people wanting political prisoners to be freed or for people wanting to get an occupying power out of their country.
Of course, there's a cost for those types of protestors. They historically have been targets of violence, unlawful imprisonment and other human rights violations. Think about the Civil Rights movement in the US in the 1960s, the Arab Spring protests in the early 2010s, the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, or more recently, the protests in Chile and Hong Kong as examples.
If you live in a free society and democracy in 2019, the types of causes similar to those mentioned above aren't found as easily. Instead, you'll have to find ways to protest against problems and concepts like censorship of free speech, racism, police brutality, income inequality, sexism, anti-scientific thinking, climate change and human extinction. It's not that these causes aren't worthy of protest. The problem is that these are complex, unspecific issues that require extremely complex solutions which can't be fixed by simply taking a walk.
For example, if you want to stop climate change caused by humans, you can try to get governments to commit to making investments in clean energy and reduce carbon emissions. To make that work, that means you need to create a mechanism to enforce their commitments. And then those governments have to get trillion dollar industries to bend to their will. Good luck fixing that with your march.
But hey, you did take to
the streets for a cause. You marched and blocked traffic to let people know that you're fighting against a concept or something that requires a multiple levels of complex thought to to reach a solution. You didn't really affect change and put yourself in any danger of violent reprisals. Your protesting just made it LOOK like you did something. That should be enough. You just want to seem like you're "fighting" without actually incurring any real cost to your well-being.
3) "Think of the Children"
Saying that you're thinking of children and future generations as a reason for your position is great way to show your virtue. This is true whether you're part of a highly religious group wanting to censor the latest blasphemous, popular film or whether you're part of an environmental activism group trying to fight climate change.
Even if you don't have kids or you don't really care about kids, you'll sound like someone who cares. All you need to do is to position your argument as being based on "protecting children" or ensuring that you are fighting to "leave a better world for the next generation". This is a very easy way to demonstrate that you are unselfish and better than other people who can only think of theirs and their own families' current well-being.
It is true that children can be vulnerable to adults who can directly exploit them. This is not what I'm talking about. To actually help expose and help prosecute a pedophile or a child pornography ring requires time, effort and could potentially put yourself in harm's way. Studying and getting a job as a social worker who tries to take kids away from their abusive home is way more difficult than simply clicking "like" and "share" on a social media sob story.
It's much easier to say that you're thinking of the children when you petition school boards to censor what kind of books teachers should be teaching or when you demand that certain types of words need to be "policed" in schools. That's an easier task that will make you seem like a good person who wants to help children.
4) Document everything on Social Media
Of course, you must make sure your efforts are visible to the world. If
there are no pics (or videos), then it didn't happen. This is where
social media comes in.
Now I'll admit that in places where oppressive governments censor the press and the flow of information, social media has been useful at disseminating news of civic unrest. The Arab Spring wouldn't have played out the way it did if it wasn't for Twitter, for example.
However, for those living in free, Western democracies, you can also use this tactic to make your actions seem more virtuous than they actually are.
Post selfies of you and your besties participating in protests to show that "you took part in this historic moment." That way, when someone else did the work of getting elected, changing laws and negotiating with multiple stakeholders to effect real-life political and social change, you can point to your Instagram pic and take credit because you skipped out on a job you don't like that day to take a walk.
Don't be shy to post on public figures' social media accounts to call them out on their non-woke behaviours and opinions. You can "call them out" if they're not living up to the arbitrary moral standards of the day.
Even if these public figures are too busy doing their jobs and have outsourced their social media to their marketing and PR teams, it's ok. You'll get more views on your posts by tagging these people than just posting something yourself. And that means more people can potentially see how morally superior you are.
Final Thoughts
It's very difficult to actually be a good person. In fact, it's almost impossible if you consider all the unintended consequences of your choices and actions. Creating real social change is incredibly difficult. It's much easier to make people THINK that you are virtuous. It's easier to adopt a strong opinion on a subject and determine that one side is perfectly good and the other is evidently evil without examining the nuances.
Whether it's allying yourself with an "oppressed" group or using future generations as the "beneficiaries" of your actions, the idea is to make sure that the most amount of people see that you're being morally superior. With that, you can reap the benefits of being a good person without having to face the difficult consequences of choosing morally acceptable behaviour.
We've all used social media. The currency on all these sites are followers, clicks, views, likes, shares, retweets and number of comments. If you have nothing of value to share on your social media, the best way to get these is by being annoying.
1) Post vague status updates (mainly on Facebook) about how you're feeling bad or sad or annoyed, etc, without explaining exactly what happened. This is a great way to "get attention" and "concerned" comments asking if you're doing ok. If you're a complete narcissist, it's an excellent way to fish for compliments from well-meaning people who want you to stop feeling bad about yourself. Also, public comments showing concern will also make these well wishers look sympathetic to other people so they'll have incentive to be nice to you.
2) Write a self-righteous, virtue-signaling, social/economic/political/religious rant complaining about white people, cis-gender males, non-LGBTQ+ males, people with money, people who aren't vegan and basically people who won't respond because they're too busy running the world. You will get social brownie points from the echo-chamber of people who think like you. The more sweepingly general and having the least amount of nuance in your post, the more angry reactions you'll get. If you're doing this on Facebook, the algorithm will ultimately move your post to the top of the news feed because it's keeping eyeballs on the site / application. Bonus points if you can somehow claim to be a victim of whatever group of people you're railing against.
3) Repeat point 2 on Twitter. Because of the character limit on Twitter, you can write your angry rant as multiple posts, numbering them.
4) The off-shoot of points 2 and 3 would be to write the virtue-signaling, self-righteous post against the people on the opposite end of the political spectrum. You'll get just as much of a response from the other side. You'll even get strong reactions from people who disagree with you. Again, the social media platforms' algorithms will identify the post as being engaging and will therefore give it more views. If you go this route though, you have to be careful because the rant can end up being borderline racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/xenophobic. The platforms might flag you for "violating their terms of service". Of course, if that happens, you can use that to further strengthen your following by playing victim. You can easily say that you're being censored and your right to freedom of speech is being violated.
5) "Humble-bragging". In case you didn't know what that is, it's a bragging post about an being in a great event or being in a pic with someone famous disguised as being "blessed" or "grateful" or of course, "humbling". A great example is a someone going to a TED talk, taking a selfie with one of the famous speakers and then posting it with a vapid quote talking about how lucky they are to be there. We get it: you were able to gain access to an exclusive event and rubbed shoulders with some very influential people. You don't want to seem like you're showing off on your LinkedIn profile, so you write it with very obviously fake humility.
6) Be "on vacation" all year round. Whenever someone goes on vacation, they normally take their vacation pics and either post them all at once when they get back or they post everything on the day that they take the pics. Instead of doing that, I suggest banking your best vacation photos and then post a different one or two daily on Instagram and Facebook. Not only does this make you look like a well-traveled individual, it's also very attractive to people who are stuck in depressing office jobs, or who have to take long commutes on public transportation. This is especially true during the winter. Great travel pics will get a bunch of likes especially if you start adding semi-motivational, humble-bragging quotes and hashtags. Bonus points if you're a relatively attractive woman who can pose in a bikini on a sunny, white sand beach.
These are just a couple of tips that you can use if you're trying to build a social media following. Get a critical mass of likes and followers and you can finally monetize your social media accounts by selling fit teas and supplements.
How your dietary choices can help stop world-wide oppression
Ask anyone in social justice warrior / activism circles. They'll tell you that the appropriation of an oppressed people's culture is one of the ways that the powerful have used to keep people down.
The choices you make when it comes to clothes you wear, the hairstyle you choose, the music you decide to play or the physical activity you practice, can contribute to the oppression caused by cultural appropriation.
Some of the best examples of appropriation can be found in the food you eat. Here are some examples of seemingly common foods that you should steer clear of to avoid the sin of cultural appropriation.
Pasta with tomato sauce
This is probably one of the most iconic of Italian dishes. Except that if you really look at the ingredients, you'll see that this dish is really a combination of noodles taken from China with a sauce using tomatoes that are only native to South America.
So really, if you want to be oppression-free when eating any form of pasta with a tomato-based sauce, the only way would be to eat a dish made by a Chinese person assisted by a Colombian or a Peruvian saucier.Otherwise, you're just encouraging the continued cultural theft perpetrated by white Italians who have the gall to call this and other pasta variations as "authentic Italian food".
Banh Mi Sandwiches
These delicious Vietnamese sandwiches are seriously problematic. For one, many non-Vietnamese have been selling these with the wrong kind of bread (ciabatta instead of baguettes) and passing them off as "authentic".
But more problematically, the authentic Vietnamese sandwich makers have appropriated French bread. Now we can argue that it's not really cultural appropriation because the French were actually the colonial oppressors in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and the surrounding regions. So you'd think that an oppressed people taking over a part of an oppressor's culture would be positive, right?
Think again.
The fact that the Vietnamese has adopted the French baguette is not positive at all. This is a sign of cultural self-hatred caused by colonialism. The colonial influence has made Vietnamese chefs think that their local breads aren't good enough and they have to use a modified version of French bread to make their food better.
By buying and eating a banh mi sandwich, you are not only encouraging Vietnamese people's appropriation of French culture. Your purchase also helps Vietnamese people to proliferate their hatred of their own culture.
Poutine
Wait a minute, this is a dish made by white people in Canada. How can it be cultural appropriation for other white people to sell and eat this amazing combination of french fries, cheese curds and gravy?
Invented in 1950s rural Quebec (the popular consensus is that it's from Drummondville, though other towns will dispute it), the dish had a very working class origin. It was created by mixing ingredients that are easily found in a diner (fries and gravy) with a by-product of cheddar cheese production (cheese curds).
The problem is that for the longest time, French Canadian culture in Quebec has always been under the oppression of the rest of English-speaking Canada. The "weirdness" of poutine was actually mocked as being the example of why Quebec culture is supposedly inferior to that of the rest of Canada.
As the popularity of poutine has skyrocketed, many restaurants in Toronto and other large cities in English Canada have been profiting off the invention of French-speaking Quebec and passing it off as a Canadian dish. Never mind that Quebec is part of Canada. Quebec society considers its culture as distinct from the rest of Canada. So buying poutine outside of Quebec or from a restaurant that isn't owned by French-speaking Quebecois is definitely problematic. Let's not even talk about American restaurants starting to add poutine in their menus.
What makes it worse are the variations of poutine that have started popping up. It started out with "Italian poutine" where tomato sauce is used instead of gravy. I've already explained the problematic nature of tomato sauce above. Now you're also seeing the additions of chicken tikka masala or feta and tzatziki sauce on poutine. Some have even substituted the cheese curds with brie or other more expensive cheeses. Other restaurants have put lobster on poutine.
The biggest offender is of course the famous "Au Pied de Cochon" restaurant in Montreal who puts foie gras in their poutine. Yes, the chef and owner is a French-speaking Quebecois. The issue is that while he technically is allowed to make and sell poutine, the chef has committed social class appropriation. He essentially gentrified poutine by making it "fancy" and pricing it beyond the means of the working class who invented the dish and intended to make it accessible for everyone.
General Tso's / General Tao Chicken
This staple of North American Chinese restaurants was actually invented by a Chinese chef who fled to Taiwan when Mao's Communist Party took over. The chef then brought it to the United States. Seems harmless enough, right?
Not so fast.
Yes the creator of the dish was originally Chinese. However, because he created that dish in Taiwan and then brought it to the USA, General Tso's chicken (or General Tao chicken in some places) is virtually unknown in China. But the dish itself was and still is being passed off as "Chinese food" in North America, giving consumers the wrong impression of what food in China is actually like.
What's the big deal? Taiwan is basically China, right? Wrong!
The government of Taiwan (not to mention the people) will be quick to say that they are an independent state with their own distinct culture. So in this case, calling General Tso's chicken a Chinese dish is indeed cultural appropriation by Taiwanese and of course North American restaurateurs.
So if you truly want to show respect to Chinese culture, you would do well to avoid this dish when going into a Chinese restaurant (which, of course should be Chinese-owned and operated). If you do eat this, you're encouraging Taiwanese rebels who are both appropriating and profiting off authentic Chinese cuisine.
One of the most difficult things about being a business owner or manager is hiring and retaining the right people. Your staff can make the difference between profitability and bankruptcy. So how can you hire and retain for success?
Here are a few tips that might help you.
Make the hiring requirements challenging
All right, if the applicant is young, tell him he’s too young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat. If the applicant then waits for three days without food, shelter, or encouragement he may then enter and begin his training.
That might have sounded a bit over-the-top, but there is something to it. This is a simple concept you’ll find in any social psychology textbook. The more difficult it is for people to join a group, the more positively they will view that group if they are accepted into it. Think of hazing rituals done in military organizations world wide, or even in college fraternities.
To relieve their cognitive dissonance, they will rationalize that the group must be worth joining after they got burned several times while they were jumping through all flaming hoops to get accepted. Because they’ve made that rationalization in their minds, these new hires are going to be more likely to overlook any negative aspects of your organization. Or at least it will take them longer to realize that the group they joined isn’t that special and they would be better off leaving for greener pastures.
The other principle is a very common cognitive bias called the “sunk cost” fallacy. Basically, the more you invest in something, the less likely you are to divest. Being forced to go through a rigorous interview process, your new hire will feel that they’ve spent so much mental energy just to get in, that they would feel that it would be a waste if they ended up quitting.
Structure the business to keep employees motivated
Employee: The thing is, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care. Consultant 1: Don’t… don’t care? Employee: It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and the company ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime; so where’s the motivation? And here’s something else: I have eight different bosses right now. Consultant 2: I beg your pardon? Employee: Eight bosses. Consultant 2: Eight? Employee: Eight. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
This is a no-brainer. If your employees only want to avoid getting fired or avoid getting hassled, you’ll eventually lose them to a company that incentivizes them properly for their work. If you’re hiring sales people, the base + commission model works pretty well.
Of course, employees who aren’t in sales roles need to be incentivized as well. Even if they aren’t directly getting financial compensation, at the very least, communicate to your employees that their contributions will help the growth of the company and the eventual increases in their pay. If your employees feel like they’re just another small cog in the larger machine (especially if it is true), you’re going to lose them. You have to at least make them feel like what they’re doing matters.
The other point about structure has to do with many large organizations having seemingly too many managers overseeing the work of one person. To justify their existence (especially when it comes to highly-paid executives), a lot of micromanagement happens, which causes them to hassle the sole employee doing the actual work.
Reinforce the fear and uncertainty of leaving your company
So if you fail to structure for motivation this is a last-ditch, Machiavellian alternative. If you’re willing to go to great lengths to keep your employees from going to the competition, it might be necessary.
Admit to your employees that they’re not in a perfect company. Of course, you can still point out that they’ve got a sure thing as to where their company is going as opposed to leaving for another company. If they leave, there are no guarantees that the new job will be better. Will they really get paid better? How secure will their potentially new job be “in this economy”? What if their new boss is an ever worse a-hole than the one they have now?
This process should be done in a very implicit way. Little hints should be dropped to cast doubt at what going elsewhere would be like.
At the same time semi-random acts of kindness and generosity on behalf of the company should be done for employees.
The result is essentially the same as what happens in an abusive relationship where the abused party just can’t bring themselves to leave. The rare acts of kindness combined with the fear of the unknown is just enough for them to rationalize staying.
Inevitably, you will eventually lose employees no matter how well you treat them or how much you try to manipulate them. The modern worker has a tendency to job hop after a couple of years in any particular role. Since modern business has historically shown that their employees are expendable, employees don’t have the incentive to act loyally towards their employers.
However, at the end of the day, without your staff your business can’t function. Hiring new people, training them, only to have them leave when they finally have a productive grasp of your business is not only frustrating. It’s very costly. Unfortunately you will need to resort to some tricks to keep them.
The
cool thing about getting a job as an executive is that because it can
pay so well, you can leave a company or a department after a couple
years with a lot of money in your pocket. In all likelihood, the
long-term consequences of your short-term decisions won’t be too
apparent. This is especially true if you’re in a publicly traded company
where “performance” is measured every 3 months instead of years or
decades.
If
you’re an executive, your ability to make effective strategic decisions
is secondary. Actually having knowledge of how the business works is
tertiary. After all, you don’t really need to stay there that long if
you’re good at negotiating salaries and bonuses and you’re smart with
your money.
To show your value to shareholders and investors what’s more important are the optics. What
you actually accomplish isn’t necessarily as important as what it looks
like you’re doing to improve the business on a quarterly basis.
Here are a few tips to help you look like you’re worth the large amount of money they’re paying you.
Adopt an “executive persona”
Think of the most iconic, charismatic leaders in the business world. They’ve all got a persona (whether it’s real or not):
You can be the tough, all-nighter-pulling, Alpha executive in a well-tailored power suit.
The supermom exec who successfully finds the balance between crushing board meetings and coaching her kids’ hockey team
You can be the quirky, hoodie-wearing Silicon Valley CEO.
An executive who wears the same outfit on a daily basis to “save their mental energy” for more important decisions.
You
can pretend that you’re the rebellious, “think-outside-the-box”,
jet-setting, risk-taking, jeans-wearing, entrepreneurial exec.
Here’s a persona that many an executive in the financial industry has adopted almost too well.
It doesn’t matter which persona you pick. You just have to make sure that the persona you pick follows these two criteria:
It
just has to be different enough from the person you replaced. This will
give both employees and shareholders the impression that you’re there
to shake things up and make some sweeping changes for the better of the
company.
It
has to be believable enough to show off your authenticity. For this, I
would do what the most successful WWE professional wrestlers do. They
take a real quirk in their personality and just exaggerate it to a point
that it becomes a new character.
WWE Hall of Famer Donald Trump using
his created “executive persona” in the ring alongside Stone Cold Steve
Austin, Vince McMahon and Bobby Lashley.
Be “helpful”
Always
present yourself to your employees (preferably when in a group setting)
as someone who is willing to provide executive help for any
“roadblocks” they might face in their day-to-day. Don’t actually help
them, though. You’re busy. Actually helping takes time and effort that
you don’t necessarily want to get mixed up in. We’re talking optics
here. You need to project an image that you’re willing to help.
Remember,
you must only ask how you can help when you’re in a public setting.
That way, whoever actually wants to ask for help will have to do so in
front of the entire company. Putting people on the spot like that will
reduce the likelihood of them asking for anything for fear of looking
foolish, weak or incompetent in front of the rest of the company. At the
extreme, they risk asking something inappropriate from the high-level
executive and get themselves fired.
Either
way, the result is that you look like the benevolent leader with an
“open door” policy, but because everyone’s so scared, you won’t actually
have to do the work of making any changes.
Make your micro-management and bullying tactics look like you’re just “hands-on” and “getting shit done”
Yes,
we all teach our kids that bullying is wrong. In this case, since
you’re the boss, it’s not really bullying. No, not really. You’re simply
showing employees that you’re forcefully getting things done. You’re
not ineffectual like the last exec. As the new leader, you don’t want to
get bogged down by useless processes. You are simply “passionate” and
can get emotional when it comes to making sure that the business
succeeds under your tenure.
To
make it look like you’re getting things done, make sure that all emails
you send to your middle-managers get marked as “Important” or “Urgent”
or “Priority”. Ensure that cons
equences for employees who don’t respond to these emails on time are made clear.
You
might be seen as micro-managing, but really, you simply want to make
sure that your employees are staying focused on the strategic tasks at
hand. You’re simply showing that you’re “hands on” and interested in how
the business functions. It’s part of “being helpful”.
Of
course, the most important thing if you get called out on your
aggressive behaviour is to never apologize. Employees should just be
grateful that you are sharing your wisdom and helping them succeed in
their day-to-day.
Offer your employees “training opportunities”
Offering
skills training to employees looking for both lateral and upward moves
in the company is necessary. That should be standard in any good
company.
However,
if you want to look like you’re a great executive going above and
beyond, you need to sponsor mandatory training programs that will make
your company look like it’s also socially conscious and woke.
Here are some examples, in no particular order:
Diversity training courses
Anti-bullying classes
Mindfulness training
Anti-harassment training
Business ethics
Environmental consciousness training
Employee engagement initiatives
Et cetera…
Sure, those types of training programs can have some
inherent value, especially if your company has a history of harassment,
bullying or even employee burn-outs. However, the biggest value that
they bring is really how good it makes the executive (and the company)
look to employees, shareholders, the media and even the general public.
Let’s
face it. The courses themselves can be empty or simply lip service. But
for a relatively low investment, an executive can now have a great PR
talking point. Now, his HR minions can brag about the company’s
commitment to “preventing harassment in the workplace”, for example.
Whether this actually stops sexual harassment in the company is
irrelevant. The executive can now wash his or her hands when wrongdoing
is reported because current employees have already received the
training. If future harassment happens, the exec can always point to
this training and say that the company isn’t to blame for the
inappropriate behaviour of a few “bad apples”.
Being
an executive can be a great, but difficult job opportunity. Latest
studies of the S&P 500 companies show that the median tenure of a
CEO for example is about 5 years. In that short a time, could you really
make a huge difference to justify the bonuses and salary that you
negotiated so well? If you’re exceptional, sure. If you’re able to ride
an upward trend and make it look like it was your leadership instead of
luck, maybe. If you can turn a company around from the brink of
bankruptcy, of course.
The
truth is, making a difference in a company is difficult. Sure you can
make strategic decisions, but for the most part, results of those will
take a lot of time to actually show. You can only be shown to be
effective by what you look like you’re doing during the quarter, not by
what you’ve done. So instead doing the actual heavy lifting with results
that won’t be seen until after you leave, just do the noisy, but
ineffectual things that everyone will see. If you’re good, you can sell
them on the value that you added to the company as you leave laughing to
the bank and on to a new executive job at a different company to start
the process over again.
As a
society we’ve become so self-indulgent, entitled, with our egos going
out of control without really having a legitimate reason. How did we get
there?
Simply
put, many of us were told that we’re special just the way we are. We’re
told that we don’t have to do anything to earn accolades and esteem. We
don’t need to change our mindsets or our attitudes. There’s no need to
improve ourselves physically, spiritually and intellectually. We simply
have “to be”. We’re amazing just the way we are.
So
with meritocracy no longer in play, how do we distinguish ourselves
from others to gain higher status? We simply make ourselves more
“unique” than the next person by tacking on more and more descriptors to
our definition of our own identities.
The more uniquely we decide to identify ourselves based on seemingly arbitrary criteria, the higher our self-worth.
Many
of us are now being told that our opinions and thoughts should matter
more than others’ simply because we can be visibly identified by
different factors:
skin colour
gender identity (or lack thereof?)
the deity (ies) we worship (or lack thereof)
the type of people we find sexually attractive
whether we actually prefer to have sex with people at all
our ancestry
our country(ies) of origin
weight and body fat percentage
our “handi-capabilities”, both physically and mentally
our dietary choices
Or a combination of the above. That’s what makes everyone a special and unique snowflake.
The reality is as follows:
You
are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re
the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of
the same compost heap. We’re all singing, all dancing crap of the world.
Even
if we manage to end up building our “professional accomplishments”, and
increase our ability to accumulate more and more expensive things,
we can still fall in the trap of defining ourselves according to our
successes. It’s a good idea to remember this:
You
are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You
are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You
are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of
the world.
So
the next time that you are tempted to get into an argument because of
your “unique” and “special” self-identification method, just remember
that everyone else around you is also “unique” and “special”. So your
opinions likely aren’t that valid to begin with. You just have access to
platforms that make it easier for you to share them.
And
in case you’re wondering if my opinion on this should even matter, dear
reader, let me identify myself. I am a young(ish) millennial male
immigrant from a historically colonially oppressed Southeast Asian
country. I live as an ambiguously visible ethnic and linguistic minority
in a North American country. I’m surrounded by privileged White people.
While I am not medically obese, it’s easy to see by looking at me that
I’m somewhat overweight. So if you criticize my opinions in this piece,
or if you don’t like, share and subscribe to this blog, you are contributing to the oppression felt by my ancestors and fellow immigrants who are somewhat overweight.
Life is precious. You never really know if today will be the last time you see someone. Whenever you see them, you should never, ever hesitate to tell them: “Hey, I really need that money back from you.” After that it’ll be too late and pretty awkward to ask their surviving relatives to pay you back.
Don’t procrastinate. Tell people what you need to say to them…
