Beware This Dystopian Future … It Might Be Closer Than You Think

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Picture the scene. It’s the near future, less than twenty years from now. You go into town to do a bit of shopping. Before you get there, you see billboards with stark messages on them, plain black words on a pale background. Messages like:

  • big brother is watchingDON’T THINK – LET THE GOVERNMENT DECIDE
  • YOU’RE NOT SMART ENOUGH – LET US DETERMINE YOUR FATE
  • DON’T WASTE TIME THINKING – JUST CARRY OUT YOUR DUTIES
  • RELAX, STOP WORRYING – LEAVE IT TO OTHERS TO DECIDE
  • DON’T RISK FAILURE – TAKE THE EASY PATH
  • DO EXACTLY AS YOU’RE TOLD – YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE

By the time you get into town, the billboards are everywhere. On most of the buildings, around every corner, telling you what to think and not to think. Deciding your fate for you. Discouraging you from using your own judgement.

A horror story of the near future? An Orwellian world where your fate is anywhere but in your own hands? Well, here’s news for you: it might be happening right now.

But who is it that’s telling you not to think, and that you’re not good enough? Who is discouraging you from taking risks or making decisions? Who is keeping you safely in your box?

Sadly, the answer is … YOU!

You’ve been listening to yourself!

If you’re like the vast majority of people, you have an internal dialogue running all day long. You’re barely aware of it. The little voice in your head is barely more than a murmur, or a whisper. But it’s there, all the time. And if you’re like most people, what it says isn’t good for you.

If you could turn the volume up a tad, you might hear something like this:

  • “Whoa there, step back … don’t take that risk … it might go very wrong, and then where would you be?”
  • “Don’t bother checking that bill, you’re no good at maths anyway … just accept it, it’s probably right.”
  • “Of course you can’t draw … you tried it once and even your stick man was a disaster, you made a right mess … you have no talent for it. And stay away from that guitar, you’ll only make a show of yourself.”
  • “No … look, don’t even think about that business idea, you’d mess it up. You don’t have what it takes. You’d be a complete failure. You’d lose money, that’s a certainty. And what would the neighbours think? Oh, there he goes again, thinking he’s some kind of successful genius! Give me a break … you’re a loser, face it.”

Fortunately, the volume is usually so low you don’t even hear it. Not consciously anyway. But your subconscious mind … now, that’s a different story. That hears it. Every single word. And it’s not designed to be picky, it’s designed to accept whatever it hears.

The subconscious mind accepts anything, and runs with it

Big BrotherActually, it’s designed to accept whatever is fed into it so that you can operate safely and successfully in the world. The problem is that we generally take no notice of what garbage is being pumped into our brains, we just accept it all, regardless.

So we don’t have to have Big Brother telling us what to do, and not to bother thinking, not yet at least. We do a pretty good job of that ourselves.

So … are we doomed? Doomed to live miserable, unfulfilling lives, devoid of risk taking and always shying away from every opportunity, just in case danger lies ahead?