You’re Responsible For Your Own Happiness

Because some people think it’s others responsibility to make them happy.

As we all know, social media will deliver us all kinds of content based upon what it is that we dwell on for periods of time. It drives home our cognitive bias and it ultimately creates an echo chamber around us.

But social media isn’t to the point that it’s a mind reader just yet.

At least it hasn’t been the case for me.

Ever since I wrote about my piece on taking the vaccine shot, the individuals I mentioned in that piece have emerged more frequently in my feed. Even though I was looking at them specifically to do critical thinking and to criticize them through these articles.

Also for some reason, Facebook has decided to offer me sponsored ads for women. I can tell because it talked about ovaries.

But aside from getting offered the occasional ad that has nothing to do with me at all, I am thankful somewhat for those posts that come from beyond my usual circle.

Because I discover all kinds of gems. Gems that are dangerous, but still worth talking about.

In this case, I want to be talking about a group called Life Mello. Doing a little bit of digging, I don’t quite know what they're all about.

Their official website points you to an Arabic news site and all of their social media content is nothing but quotes with a recognized celebrity or famous person in the background.

That or some generic buff dude.

It’s your typical self-improvement tough talk sort of content. Inspiring on the surface, but when you think more about it, it’s deeply flawed. One of those posts was shared by my former mentor and I can tell he’s fallen off the deep end now — not that I didn’t think so before.

This was the post.

No one notices your sadness until it turns into anger, and then you’re the bad person.

Nothing Screams A Good Person Than A Man With A Rifle

My initial take on this quote is why the guy with the rifle?

When you scan Life Mello’s posts, there are plenty of posts that appeal to the male audience. It features gritty and/or attractive white dudes with the occasional black guy thrown in there for good measure just to feel kinda inclusive for more male audiences.

And of course, there is nothing wrong with targeting a specific group of people with these posts.

The worst-case scenario is people will feel disconnected from the post. Like me when I was presented ads on ovary healing.

But why a guy with a rifle?

Have the minds of us men devolved so much that we associate a guy with a rifle — with the ability to shoot someone over literally anything — as a good person?

It’s disturbing to think that especially when you consider people aren’t as emotionally stable.

It leads me to think that those who appreciate those kinds of posts think that mass shooters are good people. Especially since they would fit well with the quote that is used in that post.

No one notices your sadness until it turns into anger, and then you’re the bad person.

There is some truth to that when you think about it. Sadness is something that we do bottle up along with other emotions. Depression is something that so many of us don’t want to be admitting and can result in suicide.

Are the people who kill themselves that way good people in the context of this post?

It’s hard to say when this person decided life isn’t worth living any longer despite the fact that life is a very precious gift.

And what of the people who turn their depression into anger and hatred?

You are a bad person if you resource to violence. You’ve decided to be the judge, jury, and executioner against people that have done nothing wrong to you at all.

Their sheer existence is the reason why you hate.

It’s only after you have done these sorts of things when people begin to take notice.

Because, you know, you just killed random and innocent people who had no clue of your situation.

Or you’ve killed yourself and your death is reported in the news. No context, no side of your story at all except for small bits and pieces perhaps.

But this post gets worse than that when you consider the overall message this post is trying to tell you.

It Implies Others Are Responsible For Your Happiness

If you’re sad with the current predicament of the world or where you are in life, the post suggests that the only possible way to release that sadness or get over it is to channel your “Alpha Male” and turn it into anger. 😡

Because anger is the only way a man ever solves his problems and gets people to notice them. 🙃

The second half of the post then implies that when you do that you’re some kind of “bad person”. That you’re a victim for being angry and unleashing that “Alpha Male” energy onto the world.

It’s not your fault that you beat up a person to an inch of their life or killed that person (or multiple people).

It’s not your fault if you throw a tantrum or decide certain rules don’t apply to you. You’re an Alpha Male after all. You make your own rules and everyone else can fuck off.

It implies it’s your responsibility to be unleashing that sort of energy or behaving that way. It’s totally acceptable to do whatever you want.

But more importantly, it suggests that the responsibility of your own happiness falls onto the people that are involved in your life in any fashion.

Because the only way that you’re not going to be sad and turn that sadness to anger is if you’re happy right?

If you’re happy you don’t have to behave like it’s your way or the highway.

You don’t have to whip out a gun and shoot someone if they’re making you happy.

You don’t have to beat them up or throw a tantrum because a happy Alpha Male is surrounded by people who agree with your worldview, that never challenge it or argue with you.

And they absolutely never try to get on your bad side.

You choose to be around those people because they’re only lifting you up to a god-like status. Anything less than that and you discard them. You forget about them. You disgrace them.

Because they’re not investing in you so why bother lifting even a finger of help from your privileged position?

It’s a deeply narcissistic and fucked up worldview that doesn’t make your life any better. It’s a post that openly tells you to be a gigantic dick to every other person unless they are doing something for your active benefit.

Because if they’re not, you’re going to be sad. And there is apparently some code in the Alpha Male rulebook that says that Alpha Males aren’t supposed to show such nasty emotions like sadness or depression.

We’re too manly for those kinds of emotions. Real men don’t show their tears. 💪😥

We’re too manly to ever open up to people or heaven forbid trust someone else and communicate in a genuine fashion. The sheer thought of that is the devil's fruit! 😱

And once you get sad, the only way to communicate you are sad is by throwing a tantrum.

And all of this is okay. Because Alpha Males only have two modes: being very happy or acting like a child that has access to a lot of pent-up rage, anger, hate, testosterone, and even possibly guns.

And has very little control over what could happen next.

If You Want To Be Real, Look After Yourself

I’m sick of the narcissistic teachings that the self-improvement industry preaches. The only problem is that this shit is embedded in deep.

The Secret — one of the most popular books in the industry — encourages this sort of behaviour. Behind all the mysticism and shakey science it uses, it tells to your face that if you want to attract something you need to be at that frequency to receive it.

And then heaven and earth will put every effort into bringing that to you.

If you’re not getting what you want, then you’re not attuned to the Universe enough.

All of it is teachings that imply that you don’t have to put in hardly any effort in order to get what you want. All other outside forces will simply work to make whatever you desire in life happen.

The industry has since channelled those kinds of sentiments and tailours posts to that logic of thinking for all kinds of things.

That people are responsible for your happiness.

That if someone isn’t useful to you, you let them go and never trust them. As if you ever trusted that person to begin with.

That you’ll attract the right kind of people automatically by treating those around you how you expect to be treated — by fooling them into anything.

This sort of content isn’t going to be going anywhere for a long time of course because people will fervently believe in that sort of stuff. Every industry will have a dark underbelly to it.

But the least that we can do is to try and clean it up where we can.

And it can start with understanding that we should be more responsible for our own emotions and well-being.

If you’re feeling sad, talk to someone.

If you’re feeling angry, understand your emotions, process them, and talk to someone.

The only way that we’re ever going to be thriving as human beings is by practicing empathy and gaining more emotional control over ourselves. The whole Alpha Male culture is sickening and outlines exactly why men are so twisted as well emotional-wise.

So it’s good that when you see that sort of crap, you call it out.

Because one thing that we do know for certain is that narcissism has very little benefit to us as a whole. Sure, it can lead to massive success. You could become worth billions of dollars with that way of thinking.

But in the process, it makes you into someone cold-hearted, uncaring, petty, lonely, and worst of all sad.

And the only way that you’re able to express your sadness isn’t through trusting others or being vulnerable. It’s by getting angry at people or systems and throwing a tantrum.

All because a post with a man holding a rifle told you that it’s better to be like that instead.