Tag: peerpressure

  • You will, or else…

    You will, or else…

    If it is true that the path to hell is paved with good intentions, then it confirms that good intentions are not enough to create positive outcomes.

    If we raise children with the fear of negative consequences, they’ll never truly connect with the benefit of doing what’s right.

    When that fear barrier is broken, and it will be broken at some point, we lose our children to influences and social structures that offer them inclusion and acceptance, rather than fear and punishment.

    With ease of access to alternate value systems and cultural norms, fear and a demand for compliance is no longer sufficient to influence children towards doing good or being good.

    Methods of escape in the form of substance abuse, pornography, demeaning and abusive social media trends, and more are accessible by toddlers, let alone teens or adults.

    The only sustainable approach towards combating such harmful influences is not through the fear of hell fire, or the threat of punishment,it’s through the establishment of a healthy self-esteem.

    A healthy self-esteem is built on how emotionally available their parents are.

    But parents can’t give what they don’t have.

    That is, if the parent doesn’t have a healthy self-esteem, they will rely on compliance and obedience to measure their worth with their children, failing which they will resort to being more controlling and intolerant towards bad behaviour.

    Given the norms of intolerance and compliance that set the tone for many of today’s adults, connecting meaningfully with our children has become a struggle that many are not even aware of as we interpret the behaviour of the youth as willful disobedience, rather than as a desperation to feel significant.

    If we can’t connect the youth with the value of the value system that we want to instill in them, they will connect with value systems that stroke their need for inclusion and understanding.

  • Collective guilt, collective malice

    Collective guilt, collective malice

    One of the trappings of the victim head space is that it convinces us to surround ourselves with those who will understand why we’re weak, or why we behave badly, because they themselves struggle with similar demons.

    Our need to avoid rejection or to feel validated causes us more harm than good.

    The comfort that we get from that is fleeting, while what is important to us is neglected.

    It’s like placing a band aid over a festering wound to prevent chafing.

    It may offer a very brief comfort, but the wound eventually turns septic and results in long term pain.

    It’s for this reason that we avoid sincere advisors who push us to get out of the rut that we’re in, while polarising towards those who pacify us about being in that rut because they’re so understanding.

    That’s how we surround ourselves with those who share our shortcomings and our excuses, while we convince ourselves that we found our tribe.

    Sins are not sinful because it carries with it the threat of damnation or divine punishment. They’re sinful because they’re an injustice against our soul.

    An injustice against ourselves results in us treating others unjustly.

    Virtues become sins when applied maliciously or excessively, and sins can be received as a virtue when it uplifts with kindness more than the harshness of religiosity can achieve.

    If we’re not careful, we’ll celebrate our virtues because it is supported by those who are equally distracted by their self-praise, while harming others because of our arrogance in worship.

    How often hasn’t overt worship been the safe space for abusers and oppressors, while the meek pray silently in the darkness?

    Be mindful of who you surround yourself with, and what calibre of advisors you seek.

    Otherwise, you may end up destroying yourself while feeling like it was your destiny not to find happiness.

    It always starts with you.

  • That toxic status quo

    That toxic status quo

    When we are raised in an environment focused on discipline before purpose, or compliance before understanding, we develop the belief that fitting in is more important than what is right.

    This same mindset leads us to be bullish in our efforts to uphold the status quo because of the inclusion that it offers, while violently rejecting any opinions that challenge our cultural heritage or traditions.

    The need to belong, to be validated by that social structure smothers any passion to contribute towards improving anything, because we’re led to believe that our traditions have already perfected everything.

    Thus, the unique expression of the individual is snuffed out, only to be replaced by a militancy of spirit that is celebrated as devout submission.

    Critical thinking is abandoned in favour of academic prowess, and without realising it, indoctrination is readily believed to be higher education.

    All this leads to the subservient mindset that needs permission before choosing consciously, or seeks permission before thinking independently.

    That’s how cycles of abuse are maintained, and the unique contribution of the individual is seen as an offence against the collective.

    Everyone must know their place to uphold a power structure that reveres the powerful, while enslaving the minds of the masses.

    And that is how the masses, the average soul, grows to believe that unless they have permission to break the bleak and toxic cycles of their lives, they have no choice but to comply quietly for the greater good of society.

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