The message is the problem. I am sure many of you are wondering what I am referring too. I am referring to the message that each and every one of us is being bombarded with each and every minute of every day. It is a message being sent to us by Corporate America and their advertisers on television, radio, and internet, in print and on billboards. The message is “You are what you own and what you own isn’t good enough and if you want to be happy and be of value you have to buy our things. It is a message that most of us are unaware of and don’t even really understand how it is affecting all of us

Advertisers have spent millions of dollars researching the best way to sell their products. And the research bears out that if they sell happiness trough the acquisition of their things they are going to increase sales exponentially. What they don’t tell you is, it has been proven scientifically that the search for happiness through the acquisition of things is futile, it will not work, but it is also endless. Meaning we, as a people, will always be searching for happiness through the acquisition of things because this is the message our subconscious mind is absorbing every time it sees or hears the ads. The question then becomes why? Why is this true?

You see the advertiser’s research helped them discover a proven fact about each and every human being on this planet. We all have been born with a need and a want to be happy. We have to be happy. That’s just the way we are put together. Aristotle said the greatest goal of man is to be happy. Now most of us really have never thought about this and have never really done any examination of how our minds work and where our feelings come from. The greatest discovery in modern Psychology, a proven fact, is that every feeling you have ever had is a direct result of a thought. The research also shows that your subconscious mind is active 24/7 even while you’re sleeping. The subconscious mind accepts everything as real. It doesn’t decipher between fantasy and reality. It just absorbs everything it sees, hears, smells and feels. The subconscious mind has a heavy influence on our thought process and therefore our feelings. What does all of this have to do with the message being the problem and how is it affecting us as a people?

Advertisers use this information by bombarding our conscious, but more importantly our subconscious mind with the message that your value lies in what you have, and if you want to be happy you have to buy the things. They are selling happiness because they know we have to be happy. They also know that things can’t make you happy, so we will keep chasing after the things in a never ending cycle. They continuously fuel this process through our subconscious minds. You see our subconscious minds are absorbing this message every minute of every day and eventually that message becomes part of our belief system. We then start down a path of a search for happiness and self-worth through the acquisition of things. Even though it has been proven that things can’t and won’t make you happy, we continue to search for it in an endless and fruitless chase. We are on a proverbial treadmill chasing after the prize the advertisers are holding out in front of us, yet we can never quite reach it. It is actually an ingenious plan. However, the unintended result is destroying our society. How you ask?

Let me explain how by telling you this story. Now I know this is a lot to digest and to some of you I may sound like a conspiracy theorist. I started wondering the same thing, so I decided to start paying attention to advertising and being aware of my thought process and the way I was feeling. I heard about a test you can use to show how strong our subconscious mind is and the affect it can have. I challenge you to try this. Sit quietly at night and say to yourself a couple of times “Someone is looking in the window. Someone is outside.” I guarantee within a few minutes you will be up and looking out the window for the person you just created in your mind a few minute ago. That is how strong your subconscious mind is and why advertisers use it to their advantage. This is why certain music and scents are used in stores. It’s not meant for your conscious mind, but rather your subconscious mind. They have spent millions on research into which music and which smells will relax you and stimulate your subconscious mind, so you want to buy something. I also challenge you to pay attention to advertising and how the focus is on how their product can make you happy. Here is a scenario you may recognize. One day, after watching TV for a while I found myself in the car on my way to the “Happiest place on earth.” Right up here on I-4 going to Uncle Walt Disney’s place, but first I pulled into McDonalds and ordered my happy meal. Then I stopped to buy some gas and bought a can of happiness so I could have a coke and a smile. When I got home I was so tired and stressed out I knew exactly what I needed. A nice hot bath with Calgon soaps. As I lay there, surrounded by bubbles, I heard myself whispering “Calgon take me away.”

Now I can hear some of you saying, so what Bill, what real harm is being done? Basically the unintentional affect of this message is that it is destroying the overall value we place on human life. It is also destroying our self-esteem. Ask yourself this question, what happens to your self esteem and or self-worth when you don’t have the things, you can’t afford the things or you buy the things and it doesn’t produce a blissful life. Your self-worth plummets. The value we place on human life plummets. After all having the things is what is really important. Now when you combine this attitude/message with the desensitization to violence we are exposed to in the media and in video games; to the point that by the time we are 18 yrs old we have been exposed to, or participated in a virtual gaming world, over 200,000 acts of violence and what are you left with? You’re left with a society that has to have the things no matter what. A society who doesn’t value human life and has to do whatever it can to get the things. A society where people seem to be willing to resort to violence to solve their problems and to get what they think they have to have. Don’t believe me? Turn on your local news at night and see how common it is to see people hurting and killing each other. Do the words Columbine, Aurora or Newtown ring a bell?

The good news is this can and must change! We can change it. To start with we need a public service multi-media campaign like you see for the anti-smoking campaign. This campaign must be a never ending campaign that is designed to directly counteract the message being bombarded into our heads now. The campaign must be slick; we have to get Hollywood involved. We have to have all the TV and movie stars and musicians and athletes on board. This campaign needs to be promoted as a cause that we all need to get behind and it needs to stress the true value of human life. The message must stress that each of us is unique and irreplaceable and this is what makes us so valuable. It needs to promote The Golden Rule; it needs to talk about the virtues of being a good neighbor and a good citizen. This message has to run on every single radio and television station 10 times a day. It needs to be at the beginning and end of every video game we play and every movie we see, rent, or buy. It needs to be all over the internet. I believe it is the only way we can start to make a positive difference in our world.

You the reader also must make a difference and take a positive step in this process. When you finish reading this and you are out in the public, smile would you please? Say hello to people and treat people the way you would like to be treated. Let them know that not everyone out there is packing heat ready to draw down on them. If we do this, if we really do this then the next time you are looking for the happiest place on earth you won’t have to go anywhere, because you’ll already be there wherever you are.

I realize this is a new way of thinking and new things can make you leery, but remember I