MY FRIEND BOUGHT OFF-WHITES OMG OMG OMG OMG

Have you noticed the headline brands today? Off-White? Supreme? Or Yeezys and Nike Airmax? There is high chance that you must have on Instagram because every next post is somebody wearing them and flexing the clothes and shoes. It is as if wearing them is a social status symbol and anybody who cannot afford it. It seems as if one person bought a Supreme hoodie and everybody thought it was cool and a herd formed which overdosed on the brand as if it was a drug. A few people who were waiting in a queue at a supreme shop were interviewed and were asked why they liked supreme. Most people had no answer and a lot of them did not even know which collaboration was being released that day. This just goes too how the mindlessness of the herd. If everybody buys something, just to fit in, another person will.
The main reason behind herd formation is that people are afraid of social ostracism. We fear that if we do not buy these 'hype beast' items, them we will be looked down upon by our friends who will stop talking to us. As surprising as it sounds, it is true. Due to this, we see a bunch of kids in high school wasting their parents' hard earned money on these $1700 shoes.

The problem with us millennials is that we are too absorbed by others to remember who we are. there is absolutely no space for individuality and for personal exploration. We wan to be like each other and do everything everybody does, just so that we do not get ostracised. This is probably the same reason that you see a bunch of kids in any given school who nobody really talks to because they are very different from everybody. They do not go clubbing every weekend, they do not listen to noisy rap, they read plentiful books and do not drink alcohol or smoke herb. That is more or less every millennial in a nutshell. I salute those kids for being different and true to themselves
This leads me to ask: what are we missing?
The most important thing we miss is personal exploration. By this, I mean understanding oneself, one's strengths and weaknesses and how one can do well in life. Most people nowadays hesitate at what they will do in the future or who their idol is or what their favourite book is. Reading has no value anymore and those few who do read, read garbage. I mean no offence, but every teenage fiction is a recycled version of another novel. The essence of literature has truly lost its touch.

The only way to survive and be anything in life is to try to be different. this may seem easier said than done but it is essential. You'd could start this in small ways which will soon ingrain a certain mindset into you.
1) STOP BUYING GARBAGE.
2) Do not just do something because everybody is doing it because

If fifty million people do something wrong, it is still something wrong.

3) Try being different in everyday living too. Try dressing different, talking different, or even listening to different music

in conclusion, being different is very important today but is never spoken of. Everybody is a sheep and the herd is led by a foolish shepherd towards a wolf. A wolf here is the end of the world.
So, instead of wasting $10,000 on a pair of Human Races, you'd rather buy your mumma a cute purse or a yourself a new book

 

TOO LESS>TOO MUCH

Consider these two presumptions:

A man who owns one penny is poor.

A man who owns one penny more than a poor man is also poor.

And consider this conclusion: 

A man who owns a trillion pennies is poor.

Does this conclusion make sense? 

Logically, it does not make any sense. Any man who owns a trillion pennies is very very rich. But, if you were to see the situation considering the two presumptions and with a mathematical mind, you will realise that the conclusion makes sense. A poor man is a man who also owns one more penny than the first. A man who has one more than the second poor man is also poor. A man who owns one more penny than the third poor man is also poor, and so on...

In this view, a man with any amount of pennies is poor. 

But this does not make any sense! If I have a trillion pennies, I'm very rich! But I'm also not!

This situation is called a paradox 

A paradox is a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement which when researched actually proves to be true?

A paradox can also be a contradiction in the general belief and a proven statement. For example, 2+2/2 is two but if you were to use BODMAS, then the answer will come to three. 

another very famous example is the paradox off choice.

we are often led to believe that the more options you have, the better your choice can be. Your career counsellor tells you to keep maximum options available while choosing a college. You prefer a plethora of mobile phones when buying a new phone. But what if I told you that your choice would be better if there would be 5 phones to choose from than 50?

This is true.

Lets say a shoe shop sells 500 pairs of shoes.You walk in and decide to buy one pair and begin choosing. You over over a few shoes among the sea of shoes on display. Most of the times, you will get confused and walk out of the shop empty handed. Have you ever been in such a situation?

Selection is the yardstick to progress and it is what differentiates us from planned economies and the Stone Age. But there is a limit of choices and when the limit is surpassed, the surfeit can often destroy the quality of life. 

A large number of choices ruin our decision making and make us choose an option which is not the best. This gets worse when the best option is actually hidden among a number of bad options. This was the case in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when the villain was elated by the best decorated chalice and drank from it. There were a hundred chalices and the holy grail was hidden in the back. Had there been only ten, the chances of one finding the grail would have been better. Maybe not for the villain, but any other rational person. 

Think about what you want before making a choice. Inspect all the choices and preferably write your aim down. Never choose with the idea of choosing the best choice. There is no such choice as a perfect choice or best choice. Set your mind to settle for the good choice. Yes, even in the case of partners. Only the best will do? In this world of unlimited choices, a good choice is the new sexy.

Why a free meal is a SCAM

Have you ever been given a chocolate or a pen for free by a shopkeeper or a friend or a free dish at a restaurant? If yes, then chances are tat you must have immediately formed a soft spot for the other party and in a while did something for them like visited them again or bought a pen from them.
This is called reciprocity. Reciprocity essentially means that if somebody does something for you, you are inclined to do something for them in return, by conscience. It is more or less a favour for a favour.
Here's another example: a person offers to help you with your homework and you gladly agree. a few weeks later, he asks you for your research on the upcoming project which is not supposed to be shared. Chances are that you will, even unwillingly, share your information with that person. this is because you brain will sting up the memory of the person helping you in a time of need. SO, you helping him does not seem so much.

Reciprocity may seem like no big deal, but in the world, it can have a lot of consequences.
A small example is the Hare Krishna Society. Members of the Hare Krishna Society (HKS from now) often need donations. So, they roam around crowded places like airports, railway stations, parks and city squares looking for potential donors. They carry around small flowers and whenever they see anybody, they walk up to them, greet them and then give them the flower. They tell the person that the flower is a "gift from God" and that they should keep the flower. after a few minutes of talking to the person, they pitch their donation. More than often, it pays off and the person donates to HKC.
As you can see, the member of HKC first greets the prison and gives him a flower as a gift from God and then begins to chat with him. This is the favour. The flower is the gift given which triggers your conscience and makes you sympathetic to the HKC member. The member then talks to you for a while to embed the feeling of reciprocating the gift in you. Lastly, he asks you for a donation and your embedded conscience stirs and you remember his gift to you. Even, it may seem like a small gift which he gave you, it is still enough to donate a substantial amount of money to the HKC.

We are never able to judge the value a gift or a favour which leads us to reciprocate a larger amount. Here, the HKC member is wise and gave you something of a small monetary value but a large emotional value which in turn made you want to give him something of higher monetary value than something with a high emotional value because you don't really carry family heirlooms to give out at a railway station. The HKC member played his cards perfectly while your deck fell out of your hands.

The world is full of people like the HKC members. The best way to help yourself is to realise when your conscience acts up. From there you have to be able to differentiate it with emotion and your current position. Not returning a favour is fine. it is called "favour" for a reason.
So, if anybody does decide to give you a free meal or a drink, its best to avoid it, or even better, take it and run away.