Crowds are easy to follow:

It’s easy to follow a crowd. It’s easy to think what others think and attach yourself to the opinion of the herd. It’s easy to follow the path that’s laid out for you or the one your parents think you should do.

It’s very hard to say ‘screw all of that, I’m walking my own path.’

Why?

Lots of reasons, but the main one is probably fear. Fear of judgement, fear of uncertainty and fear of failure. Where does this fear come from? Humans are innately fearful because our ancestors were. When you’re living out in nature and at any point in time you could be attacked by a wild animal, your senses always have to be heightened. Today it feels like our senses are heightened due to technology.

Our phones are distorting our view of the world. Right now what’s happening in Jerusalem with the Israeli army torching mosques during Ramadan and kicking out innocent Palestinians from their homes is disgusting and intolerable. Yet depending on which side of the media landscape you look at, it’s a completely different narrative.

Right now, the Western narrative is Hamas is attacking Israel with rockets so they need to defend themselves. I know from living with Arabs during my time in university, the western narrative is never the whole story. Israeli people started kicking Palestinians out of their home so other Palestinians started peacefully protesting. Then the Israeli army came in, shot them with rubber bullets, beat them and burned their place of worship during the holiest month of the year. So what did Hamas do but retaliate. Tit for tat.

Guess what? All that did was incite them more. What does the news media say here – ‘Hamas bombing Israel.’ I’m sure if you asked most Westerners today what’s happening in the Middle East, they’re so uninformed to think that it’s just Hamas terrorists attacking Israel. Because of the news sources they read, they can’t see the other side, even when you show them counter evidence.

The more I’ve grown up, the more I’ve realized how much the media divides a population. They’re built as entities to inform the population, but when you look under the hood, you realize they’re main goal is to inspire fear. The reason for this is so that you come back tomorrow and watch the same thing. Thankfully I live in a country where the news media is a little less biased, but still, bias exists everywhere. 

America is a completely different story.

People who are neighbours think they live in a completely different America. They may both go to the same job, buy groceries from the same places and eat at the same restaurants, yet their idea of the world could not be more different.

Watching what’s happening with this AMC and Gamestop situation is really the nail in the coffin for me. Don’t blindly trust the media. They never tell you the whole story. They only tell their version of the story. For the last century, they always controlled the narrative, which is why the people who led these organizations were some of the most powerful people in the world.

Social media has completely flipped it on its head. The most powerful people in the world today are Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter. They have the ability to take anyone they want off their platform while also controlling everything you see on your timeline. People don’t understand that these companies are in the business of making money. They could care less about what you or I think because their business model is to get you to stay on the platform as long as possible. How best to do that but inspire fear in people, exactly what the news does.

I’d like to think Jack Dorsey is a decent guy but Zuck seems like a power hungry capitalist who refuses to cede control of this empire. Sure, for shareholders, this guy might be one of the great CEOs of the 21st century considering what he’s built with Facebook. But has his invention been net positive for the world? Considering how much Facebook played a part in genocide in Myanmar and the insurrection at the US Capital, along with the continued dispersion of disinformation, I don’t know if it’s been net positive.

Every time I use social media, I never log off the site feeling happier. I maybe feel a bit more informed about what’s happening in the world but it’s only my world. If I swapped phones with anyone else in my family, our worlds are completely different because the content we see is completely different. It’s not until you get off the apps and start experiencing real life do you actually understand how the world works.

The crowds are all over social media and for most of the world, they believe they live in a completely different world than exists. It’s why I always need to remind myself to go outside and look at what’s around you.

Maybe it’s just me but this world is still pretty great. Sure it’s been great for me my whole life because of my circumstances and what I’ve achieved, but it also depends on your mindset. The way you see the world influences the person you become. If you choose to focus on the negative, you will be a negative person. If you choose to see the positive, you will find it.

These days I’m feeling a lot in the middle. On one hand the American financial system is about to blow up and I’m scared for what’s to come in America in the next few years. On the other hand my life could change forever and there are so many great parts of the world that are still unexplored. This could be the tipping point that pushes me to take the ultimate bet on myself and run my own business.

The stage is set. Are you going to follow the crowd or walk your own path?

I’ve been walking my whole life and I’m not about to stop now.