Below is a benign article that i found purporting to give us 12 steps/actions to take to make us happy. Sounds innocent enough, yes? But no. If you take a look at the article and really examine it you can see that it is a wild piece of propaganda designed to keep us looking outward so that we never discover the false existence of the ego mind. Take a look, notice what the collective egos minds want us to assume and see if you agree.
What Makes Us Happy (reprinted without permission from Prevention magazine)
1. Know What To Want
Most of us can't predict what will make us happy in the future and that inability often leads us down the wrong path. (First assumption there is a "right" path.)
The average American moves more than 11 times, changes jobs more than 10 times and marries more than once suggesting that most of us are making more than a few poor choices (Notice the second assumption. Change is bad. If you don't do it right the first time obviously you have made a bad choice), notes Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert, PhD, author of Stumbling on Happiness. (here authority is cited not once--Harvard U., not twice--PhD, but three times--author. I.e. don't question authority). One reason we so often guess wrong, he argues is that we often imagine the future incorrectly. (There is a "correct" way to imagine the future--hint duality is always a sign that ego is present.) We forget how easily we adapt, even to painful circumstances. So when we picture what it would be like to be single again or to live in Seattle or to leave one job for another, we don't factor in everything else---the new friends, the newly discovered interest in Cascade Mountains wildflowers--that might also effect our emotional well-being. (Wait is he advocating change after talking about how changes are evidence of our "poor" choices?---another sign of ego--doublespeak.) Unfortunately, Gilbert says, we can't simply train ourselves to peer into the future with greater clarity. (Knowing what to expect is "good." Ego=Unsupported suppositions.) Start with the assumptions that your reactions are a lot like other people's, Gilbert says. If you want to know whether to take a job at a new company, pay attention to the people around you when you are there for an interview (look outside yourself for answers--aha, the real message.) Do they seem engaged an interested? That should count for a lot.
In one paragraph so many distractions, so many messages to look outward. Who woulda thought? And at the end of it all, if the editors really wanted to send a message about happiness the article could have been retitled "Want What Is" instead of "Know What to Want" and then the rest of the nonsense wouldn't have needed to be written.