Are You Being Manipulated?
8 Ways Your Life Has Been Hacked

Are you successfully living your life or is it being lived for you?

Retirement offers you freedom.

Freedom from the stress of a 9 to 5 workday. Freedom from having to deal with bosses and coworkers you may not like. Freedom from a routine you grew tired of many years ago.

Are you being manipulated?Mita Park/Unsplash

Retirement affords you the freedom to be your own boss, make your own decisions and live the life you’ve been dreaming of. But if you really begin to think about your life and the decisions you make you might begin to wonder if those decisions are really your own or are you being manipulated into making decisions that fit the narrative of those you listen to? How free are you, really?

Your retirement might have freed you from your job but if you take a deep look at the other aspects of your life you might come to realize you’re not as free as you would like to think. You might not realize it but you may have become emotionally shackled to a narrative that has been spoon fed to you over many years. How so?

Those who study psychology say we are ruled by our thoughts and emotions. Is this true?

Well, it is true that repeated thoughts tend to hard wire in a persons brain. These thoughts are big contributors to our emotional state of mind. It is our thoughts and emotions that create the circumstances in our lives.

So yes, we can say it is true that we are ruled by our thoughts and emotions.

But if repeated thoughts create emotions, where do these thoughts come from?

They come from several areas, but one of the largest and most frequent sources of repeated thought comes to you daily from the media. The media or as some call it, Agenda Based Journalism has been repeatedly steering your thoughts and manipulating your emotions through the use of a multitude of outlets? They’ve been doing this all of your life.

Here are a few ways in which you and I are being manipulated into thinking thoughts and projecting emotions that have been skillfully placed in out heads.

Newspapers

Newspapers at one time reported the news. Investigative reporting was a real thing. Reporters actually uncovered and reported their findings in well written articles. These days most newspapers publish stories sent to them by corporate news agency's like the Associated Press and Reuters. A good portion of the stories you read are geared toward negativity, fear and sensationalism. Real journalism has taken a back seat to bland, predictable stories that cater to the manipulated world view of the masses. These days it seems junk journalism rules. What you read has a huge impact on the way you think. Newspaper stories can and do manipulate your world view.

Magazines

Magazines used to carry interesting articles and a few ads. Take a look through many of today’s more popular magazines. What you’ll find is a full spread ad at each turn of each page. There are ads that resemble articles, articles that resemble ads, short fluff articles that contain more images than actual written words.

Magazines have turned into the mouthpieces of corporate America. They manipulate your thinking through the use of full page ads and high impact glossy images. They push their products on every page. What happened to magazines with decent well written articles? They seem to have taken a back seat to the ad layouts.

Network Television

Network television used to broadcast actual shows and movies which carried an actual plot. Most shows were sponsored by corporations selling their products. Lets face it, television has been an advertising medium since its inception. That was and still is its purpose. I get that.

When television first hit the airwaves,, the ads were sparse. One ad at the beginning, one in the middle and one or two at the end of each program. A half hour show had maybe three minutes of ads. These days a thirty minute show has more ad time than actual program.

The programming of shows depicting stupid people in dysfunctional situations is presented as real life. They hide the the stupidity of it behind canned laughter hoping you won’t catch on. You are a captive audience to this form of psychological programming of your mind. They choose how they want you to think both through the programs they promote and through the ads they place in front of you.

Network News Media

Network news media is notorious for manipulating people. The stories they promote are meant to instill fear and to manipulate you into doing things you wouldn’t ordinarily do. It’s called problem, reaction, solution. A problem is created by those who want to manipulate you. It’s reported by the media in a way that causes the type of reaction they want from you. Then they miraculously come up with a solution that is in their best interest, not yours. Like giving up your rights in order to protect you against so-called terrorists. We’re programmed to swallow this rouse hook line and sinker.

All the network news medias share the same talking points presented to you as fact by network controlled talking heads. The stories they promote are meant to project a certain narrative and to keep you and your mind under control.

It’s a subtle psychological programming used to manipulate your thought process and your emotions over time and eventually creating their world view in you. Welcome to your new reality.

Public Schools

Public schools weren’t meant to teach students anything useful. Especially how to be successful or think on their own. They were started and are still used today as a vehicle to both train compliant workers for corporate America and instill a certain world view on unsuspecting students.

Big Pharma and the Medical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. The medical profession in this country is under their thumb. Many doctors are nothing more than licensed drug pushers. The medical profession in this country is not interested in curing anything. All most of them are trained to do is manage your medical symptoms with expensive drugs. There’s no profit in healing you.

Think about it. How many medications are you on? Are you getting well or are your symptoms just being managed with drugs you’ll have to remain on for the rest of your life? You think you’re being helped, and rightfully so. Don’t get me wrong. In some cases you are. In others you are becoming dependent on their high priced product. Your symptoms are being managed but your core problem is not necessarily being cured. This in turn keeps you dependent on high priced drugs through high premium medical insurance. In many instances the cost of insurance keeps you working so you can afford their treatment. Because of this, retirement becomes an impossibility for many.

Our food is being manipulated by chemists who are “Improving” it by genetically modifying fruits, vegetables and the most widely used ingredients in pre-packaged processed food items. Most processed food products contain ingredients that do not promote good health.

Food Industry

The food industry uses the media to promote their products. If you use these processed food products as your main source of nutrition, your body will eventually break down. When that happens you will end up under the “care” of the medical profession.

Social Media

Search engines like Google promote certain media at the top of their search results that enforces their world view and the view they want you to think. Many social media sites do the same. Twitter before Elon Musk took it over is a prime example of how users have been manipulated by social media.

What can you do about it?

Being under the influence of the corporate media machine makes it difficult to live a full life. One that allows you to think for yourself.

You need to start thinking your own thoughts and start living your own life on your own terms.

Learn to eat healthy food. Read labels and know what you’re putting into your mouth. Better yet eat organic whole food and stay away from processed foods as much as possible. Shop the perimeter of your local supermarket. Stay away from the middle isles as much as possible. Better yet, shop at your local farmers market.

Stop watching network television. It’s a time waster, a manipulator and an energy suck. Get up off the couch and go for a walk. Get moving with some sort of exercise. Staying healthy will go a long way in keeping you out of the clutches of big pharma and the medical industry.

Read books. There’s no ads and many of them can actually teach you something worthwhile.

Take back your mind, think for yourself, develop your own good habits and create your own circumstances. Create your own reality. Understand most media outlets are not looking out for your best interest. They are looking out for theirs. Don’t let others who have their own agenda and ulterior motives in mind do your thinking for you.

By weaning yourself away from most media you can learn to start thinking for yourself and make better decisions. Your retirement and your life will take on a whole new outlook of what freedom really feels like.

© Copyright 2023 by Scott A. Gese All Rights Reserved.

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