Can You Be Bought?
They say that everything has a price. I am writing this 11 days before a presidential election and seeing emails about special interest super PAC’s spending millions to get their messages into the world. They must believe that our votes can be bought through buying and running ads purporting their views many times over. This has made me think about a deeper question around why I (we) do what I (we) do, and where my (our) beliefs come from.
There was a point in my life about 10 years ago that I found myself confused, unhappy, and disillusioned and realized that I had spent most of my life looking outside of myself for who I should be, what I should do, and what I should think. I had sold my self for my career; and I bought things, and carried opinions and beliefs that I thought would get me approval and belonging. At this point of awakening, I realized that none of that worked to bring me happiness or security.
I realize that I had sold my soul to the whims of society and found that what I had become was bereft of meaning and authenticity.
It was at this point that I shifted my focus to asking myself “what is the truth, MY truth?” I began to question everything and everyone. I stopped believing anything on face value – especially my own thoughts. I knew I had to “wake up” and look at everything from a new perspective.
From there I began to know myself and what I really believed (at least in that moment). I began to ask what felt true about what I was observing in the world, and what did not seem true – for me. I began to know myself, my desires, and rebuilt a life based on that.
Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz write about this in the 5th Agreement from the Book The 5th Agreement: Be skeptical, but learn to listen.
“Wherever you go around the world, you will hear all kinds of opinions and stories from other people. You will find great storytellers wanting to tell you what you should do with your life: “You should do this, you should do that, you should do whatever.” Don’t believe them. Be skeptical but learn to listen and then make your choices. Be responsible for every choice you make in your life. This is your life; it’s nobody else’s life, and you will find that it’s nobody else’s business what you do with your life”.
The scary thing about all the money in politics is that the way things are, many people’s opinions can be bought. It would be much fairer to have election laws that evened the playing field, but my real hope is that we can all wake up and see what is beyond the propaganda, look inside for what we know to be true and decide and declare that we can’t be bought.
