You are being told what you want to hear, not what you need to know.

This is not necessarily a new phenomenon, but it’s more rampant and apparent now than ever. Look to journalism, advertising, and really anywhere that goods, services, and ideas are sold. Commoditization and the information age has led the fight for engagement to largely supersede truth. Clicks, views, shares, likes, mentions -- whether digital or otherwise -- are the hottest commodity, and the competition is unbelievably fierce. This means that every source for something that you consume (media, products, services) is fighting to figure out what’s going to catch your attention -- what you want to hear -- and trying to sell it to you bigger and louder than the rest. The tools of the trade are fear, sensationalism, silver bullets, large promises, and hope, and by and large, we eat them up.

Behind this all is the unfortunate truth that truths tends to not be as popular as fictions. Reality can be harsh.

What this massive trend away from truth and towards crowd-pleasing has created is a mass delusion. We have collectively created a fiction of products and ideas centered around what the general population wishes to be true, and it’s scrambled the average person’s expectations and view of reality.

Of course everyone says they’re more interested in what’s true and real, but truth tends to be much more upsetting than what the engagement peddlers have to offer, and so the fiction continues (demonstrated by the population’s votes with their dollars and clicks).

On the bright side, in the information age, we now have more capacity to share ideas than ever before, and while this feeds both sides of the battle (truth and fiction), some populations are starting to catch on. I am of the mind that when you stop and think, intuition will often do a pretty good job of distinguishing between truth and cheap tricks, and we each are as responsible for seeking and sharing truths as any journalist, advertiser, or business-person.

If it feels like it’s too good, too sensational, too perfect to be true, it probably is.

- PS

7/25/18

• For total reps/cals:

• 2 min max cal row

• Rest 1 min

• 3 min max wallballs (20/14)

• Rest 1 min

• 4 mins max strict push-ups

• Rest 1 min

• 5 mins max strict pull-ups

• Rest 1 min

• 4 min max strict push-ups

• Rest 1 min

• 3 mins max wallballs

• Rest 1 min

• 2 min max cal row