Is humanity confused?

con·fuse

  [kuh n-fyooz] 

verb (used with object), con·fused, con·fus·ing.

1.

to perplex or bewilder: The flood of questions confused me.

2.

to make unclear or indistinct: The rumors and angry charges tended to confuse the issue.

3.

to fail to distinguish between; associate by mistake; confound:to confuse dates; He always confuses the twins.

4.

to disconcert or abash: His candor confused her.

5.

to combine without order; jumble; disorder: Try not to confuse the papers on the desk

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/confuse

I am confused. The world around me seems to be confused. We confuse an event for profit with sport, art, music. We confuse products with entertainment. We confuse marketing with skill, we confuse social media with friendship. Teenagers think someone is a great singer but this person can’t sing. People think someone is a great actor but they can’t act. People think a great movie was produced but a great amount of money was spent on special effects and marketing. People believe a food is great and healthy because television tells them so. The confusion goes right through all areas of our life. We think we know how our girlfriends should look like, what the ideal picture of our wife should be. But it is all based on the confusion created by fashion industry, by make-up companies and fitness and anti-aging businesses.  We strive for a high paid job because money makes us attractive. Confused! We buy electronic devices because we think they are useful. Confused! We take pictures with phones instead of using a decent camera. Confused! We eat food or don’t eat food because our government says it is good/bad for us. Confused! We need to see this latest movie because all of our friends saw it. Confused!

How do we actually define our values?

Do we have values? Do we define them? Or do we allow others to define them. The values we follow are often if not always defined by someone else than us. No matter if we are a Greenie and act in our role or if we are a conservative. We always follow a role definition which has values defined by someone else. When was the last time you saw a good looking lady in make up and high heels fighting to protect the whales? When was the last time you met a girl in jandals and home spun jumper attending a workshop about investment portfolios? Clichés, roles, stereotypes. Created by others to guide us, to confuse us. Is confusion their program? What are your values. No I mean “your” values. The ones you alone created without influence of others, without influence of the environment? Do you have any? Do you follow them? Do you know them?

Who is interested in our values?

Is it anyone’s business? Should it be anyone’s business? Are our values business? We need to distinguish between our values and society's values. The community we live in has some important values we should follow. Otherwise this community wouldn’t be able to function. But the community also makes up some of its values influenced by interest outside the community. The trick is to identify which values are the community’s and which aren’t. And then to decide to incorporate these values as one’s own.

The challenge

Our challenge should be to find the difference between our values and other’s values. Once we identified a value as someone else’s we can make an informed decision to accept them as ours or not. We walk through life those days and thinking that the values we follow are our own. This is our greatest challenge. Find your values and follow them. Don’t confuse values based on other people’s or company’s interests as your own.