Don't Tell Me What To Do

Pour a drink and get yourself comfortable as I am about to launch into a impassioned rant under the guise of fictional writing. 

Or maybe it's just a rant. Maybe I am writing as a character right now, maybe I am just letting loose as myself and don't want anybody to be concerned about my mental health because honestly, I am fine (I am). Maybe this character is in the early days of perimenopause and has realised she's had enough. Anyway, fictional or not, I'll let that mystery sit with you because that's what makes writing (and reading) extra fun.

It starts like this. Don't tell me what to do.

A phrase that has grown into a bit of a joke for me to allude to my let's say 'headstrong' (stubborn) nature, is becoming all to serious. In the ashes of a recent chain of events, 'thinking' events full of revelations and soul searching, I have realised I am suffocating from pressures coming from all sides. Who to be, how to be, what to do. And I've had enough of it.

Let's start with the obvious, and I'm going to upset some people here. The unfathomable amount of people online trying to sell us a way of life. Lifestyle influencers with pages full of borrowed cars and houses. The tonnes of folk trying to get by who have followed a course to teach guess what, selling courses, so now they push their pyramid schemes on others because they desperately need the money. I mean, they've got their own problems. Mouths to feed bills to pay, that's exactly why they went for this opportunity. They are not the problem. That kind of opportunity preys on people, it feeds on time and makes money for others, and that just has to stop now. Anything that suggests do this course and you can sell a course, even if you know nothing about it, should be a red flag. If it sounds to good to be true then it is. 

Also for the record, I'm not adverse to people selling courses. I just think they should know the subject enough to write it, and to teach it. And this funnel of selling a £9-£27 'guide to change your life', which is clearly a warm up to get you to sign up to a course is misleading. Be honest. It is. When you life suddenly revolves around selling, something has shifted. And how do you feel about it. Really? Ask yourself, and listen to the answers you get. 

Even the idea of 'followers' alludes itself to a cult. People are being taught to make themselves a brand, to sell themselves, to spend on other peoples methods to gain followers, and then use that same system to make money from them. The consequence in this rise is more than the financial implications for people that subscribe to this way of living. It's making everyone else feel like their life is less. And that's low. Making people feel like what they have in life, that they are happy with, is not enough, and they need more. Why? So someone somewhere can make more money.

It's monstrous. 

But then, Capitalism is a monster. It always has been. It was useful until surprise, people got greedy. And they messed it up for everyone. Then again, the whole system was born of greed. In the very early days, Edward Bernays used Freudian elements to sell people more than they needed after it proved successful in wartime propaganda. If you're interested in that, you can learn more about it in Century of the Self, which you can watch on  youtube. It is eye opening to say the least.

Something has to change.

And the further implications of all of this, is it makes our own relationship with money really complicated. 

The fact is, right now, we need money to survive. We have to pay bills, we have to buy food, we have to live.

And whilst beavering away trying to earn enough for that, I'm constantly faced with feelings of guilt for wanting more. I'm having to reason with myself that I deserve enough money to pay my bills without worry. That I deserve to not be stressing about getting to the end of the month every month. Why is that a conversation? Of course I deserve that. So does every human being. I know this in my heart of hearts. According to some online, I must have some sort of 'limiting beliefs', of 'blocks' that I can remove to live my best life, if I pay them to do it.

And there are plenty of folks online that have something to say about that too. Manifest, think positively and the Universe will reward you. Don't sit with feelings of lack, the Universe will think that's where you want to be. 

Well it's pretty bloody hard to not think about lack when you don't have enough. And how exhausting is that, trying to crack that code? Again, it's a massive consumption of time, energy and hey money if you've got any to throw at it. 

I'm tired of the spiritual guides sitting on my shoulders. Do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that. If you do that, it will affect the whole world and pull it into a worse timeline. There will be war and death because you made a wrong choice today. Take that. 

I didn't even contemplate how my thinking would change a timeline until I saw it in a video, and now it's in my head, just like, the rest of it. My mind has been invaded. 

Now, I'm not here to dictate to anyway what they should be doing. I think everyone knows their truth if they sit and think about it a bit. Even when buried under all this influence. This rant is purely based on how it is affecting me. I'm talking from a me perspective. I've had enough of all of it. This constant bombardment of who to be, how to be, and the repercussions if you don't is scrambling my brain to the point I almost lost who I really am. And that does get me wondering how many other people this is happening to and what a terrible effect this whole thing is having on the world. It's completely distracting us from our own mission, our own journey. Our own selves.

The thing is. I'm stubborn. I'm headstrong, and as forced as I get, as squeezed and pushed and pulled as I get, it will only ever end in me rising up and saying no. No. NO. And hey presto, I write a disgruntled rant to shout no at the world, or in reality the handful of people who will read this. 

Whatever incredible forces and mechanisms bring us to this earth, and whatever purposes we are playing out here, I right now reclaim my identity. I'm not here to be compromised by others. I know in my heart of hearts that all I want to do is enjoy my life, create and help people. That's it. That's my course. Everything else is a distraction.

And this doesn't even come close to talking about some of the bigger events in the world right now that are utterly so terrible it's hard to believe it's even happening. I can't even get started on that right now. I have to acknowledge it though.

Exhale that feels better. Now, I've got to go. It's time to start work. Or is it? Maybe this character goes for a walk in the sun, sits next to the sea and listens to waves breaking on the shore with nothing in her mind other than the sound of nature breathing, the salty smell of the wash and seaweed and sights around her. White gulls against blue skies. The mottled collection of stones and shells. The froth of the swash. Nature. Nature that welcomes, that inspires without asking to be paid first.

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