You're not the boss of me!

It's what kids say to each other, or to adults sometimes. We don't like to be bossed around. We don't like to be manipulated. It is part of what has made this era so pungent. We feel infringed upon by strangers trying to tell us what to do.

There was a season for me, pre-dating most of the galloping hoard I now live with, when some things that were precious to me had gone horribly awry. I was really down. And, probably for the first time in my life, I turned to the television for comfort. Not just any TV show. I started watching a *insert gasp* soap opera. The Days of our Lives. I watched it pretty much every day. There was a baby missing or who had been kidnapped or something, and I was hooked. I had to know what happened to the baby. 

The information wasn't coming quickly enough, just watching the show, and I discovered, on the newly available World Wide Web of Useful Information... a spoilers page. Each Friday at precisely 1:00 pm, someone would post a few tidbits about what was going to be on the show on Monday, presumably so I could sleep that weekend. 

Later I discovered there were Archives of the history of the characters of the show. After I had read all. of. them., I learned that the main bad guy, whose name was Stephano, had died NINE! times during the course of the show. And found that couples were not permitted to live happily ever after. A couple who finally got together after stringing the viewer along for years would eventually be dissolved by death or kidnapping or affair. It Was All About Keeping Me Watching.

I read an article this morning about the algorithms used by TikTok to keep users sad and addicted to it. All of social media uses algorithms to keep users engaged, and not for their benefit. All entertainment, movies, television are designed for addiction. All video games, even educational ones. 

And foods. Foods are designed to have the exact, scientifically researched and balanced, amount of sugar and salt and fat to keep us coming back for more and more, all the while we are starving for the nutrition found in real foods made to heal our bodies by the God who designed us and placed us in a garden. But that's another subject.

Isn't there something in you that wants to say, "you're not the boss of me," to the forces trying to take hold of you? We don't want the government bossing us, or doctors, or employers. But we willingly cuff ourselves to our electronic devices and allow them to impact our worldview and moods with very little filter. Even news sources we agree with are still manipulating the headlines and clickbait to keep us coming back for more.

I don't like being manipulated. I certainly don't like the idea of young people who I love being dragged in chains to places that their hearts, if they were fully awake, would not choose to go. We have to wake up and smell the poppies.