If there is a single piece of advice that I have given, this is the one to listen to. “Do NOT let them waste your life!” But, it’s not just material success, or social success that counts. That new phone may impress your friends, or increase your social standing, but, in the end, it breaks, wears out, or just doesn’t work. And you are back to square one. It’s the same with a car, clothes, or just about anything. In the end, you’re stuck with yourself. All of the things, the faux friends, and the people that take what they need from you, are just the distractions that hide the truth.
.
In the end, it is all about you. Now, I know that sounds selfish, but it is simply the truth. There is a foundational truth, that you can’t really love anyone else until you love yourself. You can’t be at peace with others until you declare peace with yourself. It’s not about taking from others what you need, or giving to others what they need. It’s about understanding who you are, so that you can freely give of yourself but always understanding that relationships are a sharing of equals. Those who take and do not give back equally, are acquaintances, not friends. Those that will suck you dry, then decide, you are no longer beneficial to them.
.
That is the real human equation. Those that seem so “Successful” are usually very aware of the transitory nature of success. The very nature of their flaws and the fear of discovery, of who they really are. So, they must create the same uncertainty in other’s lives to mimic those in their lives. Create the certainty, for others that others are as flawed as they. That is why, it is important to them that you, too, must waste your life.
.
That, is a continuing thread throughout our society. That faux success must hide their flaws and that those that don’t play their game, must be destroyed. It is at the heart of vengeance politics, hate, fear, racism, and nihilism. It is at the heart of the economic abuse of those I call the “Cons.” To use our captured system, to take from those that might threaten their perfect world of imperfect people. To know yourself, to be a critical thinker, and to be at peace with who you are, puts them at risk. Everything in their life, is about playing the game. Everything becomes the game.
.
There are many games in play, but all of them include limiting you, and wasting your life for their benefit. All of them seek to buy you, for what is many times just an illusion. From relationships that are mostly one way, to friendships that are the same. Going on to include the economy and how it really works, to vengeance politics, religion, and the fear/hate of anything that disturbs the comfortable certainty of faith or the illusion of success. All of which, they seek to to us, to profit, from your wasting of your life to their benefit.
.
It begins with a defense of your critical thinking skills. If it sounds, not right, off, or out and out insane, it probably is. If you must sell yourself, or those critical thinking skills to be accepted, then it will, in the end, waste your life. You will become the nutrition that drives their flawed, abusive life. While you are digested, and discarded. Just like your body does with food.
.
Peace, can only really be generated by yourself, and given to yourself. Everything else, is just buying into someone else’s construct. If you own yourself, are at peace with yourself, seek the truth, and the exploration of that truth in uncertain understanding, then no matter the outcome, you will not have wasted you time, and your life.
RC Romine