When society crushes down our individuality!

We’ve been told since our childhood, that the only way to live a comfortable and secure life is by getting good grades, having a good-paying decent job, rising through the ranks, and saving some money or taking out loans, to eventually achieve the ultimate purpose of life and that is: settling in a nice house, buying a fancy car, purchasing clothes and goodies, and living happily ever after.

Indeed a well structured system that is telling us precisely what to do and where to go, guiding us step by step like a standardized map, on “the suppose to follow” path. No matter who you are, what you love, and what your dreams are, the pathway is the same and the golden rule of a successful life is crystal clear: graduate from a good school where they would tell you exactly what to study and how to succeed, get a good job  where they would list all your tasks and responsibilities, work hard to have a promotion and earn more money, then display your earnings through houses and cars in order to feel accomplished and happy.

If we would compare the society to a huge Lego’s manufactory, and the society's system (culture and education) to different production lines, we would be the Lego bricks. Each category is shaped to match a certain figure; the lot is then produced with the same dimensions and in the same color, designed therefore to fit in a predetermined place. For most of us that place is typically a chair, a desk and a computer. What an exciting life! 

      And just like in any manufactory, if a final piece doesn’t meet the required proportions, the product is automatically thrown away and labeled defective and inadequate, aka a loser and a disappointment to your family.

With the rise of capitalism, industries and companies needed human capital with a range of specific skills (managers, engineers, accountants, technicians…). Accordingly, a rigid system was conceived in order to provide them with such expertise. Back to the example of the Lego’s manufactory, those industries would be the clients who buy the Lego bricks (employees) in exchange of a monthly salary.

Furthermore, this exact system is promoting, through the massif advertising, their “must to have otherwise you’re not adequate” products to these employees, so they wouldn’t bear to live without having them. Making thus people stuck in the infinite spiral of getting that salary, to spend it on that product, to have that satisfying life. In another word, we became slaves to a greedy economic system.

Now, there is nothing wrong with the desire to buy stuff and own properties, but at what cost? What are we giving up in the process to adjust and blend in with the system? What are we neglecting and ignoring in order to make more money? And most of all, how fitting with such a lifestyle makes us feel inside?

When we hear a painter, a writer, a philosopher, a poet, an inventor … the first thing that comes to our mind is either a portrait of an old man hanged on a museum wall with the caption 'RIP', or a simple hobby and a passion. Not for a second we would think of them as real careers, I mean why would we? Our society doesn’t need those kind of jobs anymore; they would only care about predefined and structured jobs where the person’s individuality wouldn’t interfere with the desired outcome (just like Robot). A meaningful work that would make you wake up every morning and look forward to your day sounds more like a joke than a dream nowadays.  

It could be surprising to know how far we let that system control our lives and our choices. Not only have we given up our personality, creativity and ambitions along the way, but we’ve lost the deep connections with others as well.  We spend less time with family and friends; each one of us is consumed and lost in his separate corner (job) away from the closest people to him. We are ready to give our 3 months old baby to be taken care of by another person, sometimes a complete stranger, so we could focus more on chasing after extrinsic goals (money, promotion…), the very thing that would never give us the joy and the fulfillment we get when we connect wholeheartedly with a dear person.

We all have certain innate needs like to feel connected, to feel valued, to feel secure, to have autonomy and to make a difference in the world. However the way of living imposed on us by society doesn’t meet those basic psychological needs, therefore we are left with a permanent puzzling sense of dissatisfaction. Depression and anxiety grow bigger as the gap between what we would love to do and what we are compelled to do grow wider. We live under a system that constantly distracts us from what’s really good about life. A system that constrains us to have a job we don’t like, to earn lot of money we don’t necessarily need, in order to buy stuff we're supposed to have. A system that is programming us to be the same (graduate from a good school), to think the same (get the best-paying job), to dream the same (buy a house and a car), and to achieve the same (nothing meaningful).  

What an absurd life!

Salma Ri