To think or not to think

I read something today that a friend of mine had re-posted on her Facebook wall. It was part of an article that suggested that if you want people to think, you should give them an end goal to work towards and let them use their own creativity to figure out how to get the job done.

The article pointed out that, instead of doing this we tend to give people instructions on how we want something to be done and then they just blindly follow the instructions on autopilot until the task is complete. Both ways gets the job done. But only one of them actually engages the minds of the people doing the work.

This caused me to be reminded of the Matrix trilogy. While there are tons of allegories, philosophical lessons and religious overtones, those movies drive home for me how most people live nearly their entire lives without doing any active thinking at all, once they get out of school.

People tend to make a few basic decisions that drive their life in a certain direction and then just tune out for the rest of their lives. The routine becomes all there is.

Wake up. Go to work. Come home. Spend some time with the wife/kids/computer. Go back to bed. That's all there is to Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday are for getting drunk with the buddies/homegirls, watching sports  and forgetting about the trials and tribulations of the week. And then its back to Monday to start the whole thing all over. This goes on for a handful of decades and then we retire. Shortly after we die of old age.

It has been said many times and many different ways that all that truly separates man from the animal kingdom is our capacity for rational thought. If that is true then why is it that 99 out of 100 of us insist on spending nearly our whole lives as zombies, just following along with the masses.

We have the ability to look at our lives objectively, to see the things that we like and do not like about them. We have the power to change the things that we do not like, to craft the life we have into the life we want. Why don't we? Why don't you?

I believe that giving people a task and letting them find their own solution is a tremendously good idea. It saves you the trouble of needing to figure out every little finite detail. Besides, someone else is bound to think of different things than you do, perhaps even better solutions than what you would come up with. And very few people, if any, enjoy being micromanaged.

Encouraging others to come up with their own way of getting a thing done, gives them the opportunity of warming up their little used mental capacities and then allows them the opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to continue thinking for themselves or go back into the Matrix and let their thinking be done for them.

My aversion to social media

For a long time, I have resisted using social media sites on the internet. That's not to say I have never used them, just that I have not been comfortable with them. I have both a Facebook account and a Twitter account, but their usage has been sporadic and light.

Originally, my resistance was due to mistrust over the usage of personalized data that these sites collect. I thought I wanted my general every day actions to remain anonymous. But, recently I started to really do some serious thinking.

For one, I am not ashamed of anything I do, though some of my habits and choices are things that others may not agree with.The idea of keeping my private life private has always been part of why I avoided the social media. But it occurred to me that I really don't care whether my life is private or not. I am rather fond of saying that there isn't anything I wouldn't do privately that I wouldn't also be willing to do live on public television. And if this is true what I am I doing hiding from these social media sites?

Avoiding Facebook or Twitter isn't going to keep my information away from the federal government. They already know where I live.  I don't have any intention of posting "racy" pictures of myself anywhere. But so what if I did? I am not a gorgeous teenage girl that is likely to get stalked or kidnapped.

Part of the usage data collected by these websites is used for advertising purposes. There is no worry that my purchasing habits will be at all influenced by additional advertising, even if it is more focused. I buy what I want to buy and commercials seldom influence that.

 I have a message of empowerment and enlightenment to bring the world. My vision of world wide change due to waking up the masses and educating them to the fact that they can choose a better life if only they are willing to work for it, is not going to happen if I am "hiding" from the internet.

For a very long time I was looking for an online business that I can really get behind, something that supports my beliefs. In the Empower Network I have found such a business. The products and core steps of the Empower Network are set up to teach people how to constantly improve themselves while learning to promote a business. It is literally designed to empower people while helping them earn a living online. In just two short years, they have helped tens of thousands of people to start making a living online, people who have never had success online before.

Promoting this business, promotes my beliefs. Just by being, it makes the world a better place. And social media sites are a big part of promoting the Empower Network. Based on all these things, I really have no reason to continue avoiding the social media.

So, out with the old way of thinking and in with the new.