The sheer amount of lies you are told whilst growing up in western culture - more specifically United States’ culture is astounding. I’m not entirely why we tell each next generation these things. Or even that we are consciously lying. But never the less we are.
Lie 1
You want to live in suburbia.
That’s the American dream right? Live in suburbia where all the houses are the identical. You all have nice white vinyl fence, wife and two kids, nice dog, and your 9-5 (which is actually 7:30-5:30) desk job at Mega Corp.
But this isn’t what I want at all. I was nearly drawn into wanting this until I realized the ridiculousness of maintaining a lawn. You have a patch of foliage, grown in such a way that is unnatural, just to cut down (who decided on cutting grass?), and spray with toxic chemicals to keep the natural foliage away. This is not what I want at all. I want my yard to be full of native plants. Whether that is grass or sagebrush that’s ok with me.
You want a vinyl fence.
Naw, barbwire is good enough.
You want a wife, two kids, and a dog.
Well, actually yes. Actually more than two kids.
HOA’s will increase your home’s value.
Stop telling me if I can change something on my private property. This is also another strike against living in city limits.
Lie 2
Professionalism
I don’t know who decided to start spewing that the “real world” is “professional”, but they are lying to you. Remember that kid that was told off in class for swearing (“How are you gonna hold a job with a mouth like that?”) Well guess what, at every job I’ve had, whether it’s a high school job or a “adult” job like I have now. People and co-workers swear. There are other reasons you shouldn’t swear (it makes you appear less intelligent), but it’s not for the sake of professionalism.
And when you get this big professional job you will feel accomplished!… Right? Well probably not. For a year or two at the longest. It wore off of me within a week. I don’t see real differences working in I.T. for a school than laying brick on a campground.
Here are more of my thoughts on the subject.
Lie 2.5
Drop ceilings.
This one might sound a bit unhinged. But related to the lies of professionalism are drop ceilings. We all know why they are used - so that wiring and HVAC can be hidden from sight. But why? We all know they are there. We know that maintenance will need to be done on them. Why are we hiding it? It seems to be to maintain this illusion of professionalism. That if we look the part maybe we can trick ourselves into feeling the part.
Lie 3
College.
I would like to ask you, the reader, a question:
Look at the people you see successfully working a job. How many of the went to school for that job?
For me, it’s not many. Sure, I know people who are medical doctors and they went to medical school. But I know plenty of persons in the I.T. field which are “uneducated” in the field. And this doesn’t even have to be an anecdotal point, the data is with me.1
Have you ever done a CBA (cost-benefit analysis) on going to college. Generally it’s pretty bad. What kind of job are you expecting to get to offset the cost of 4 years of your life and $100,000? I know colleges promise there are plenty of jobs that pay six figures, right out of college. But those are the exceptions, not the rule. Considering that the average U.S. income is $76,3302 (all ages) and that’s with 37% of the population having bachelors or higher degrees. If we include two year degrees that number jumps up to 47%3.
And please, do not go to college just because that’s “the thing to do”. It is scary to go and get that first job. But after about two months you’ll be ok. It will be scary whether or not you have a degree. But I will have to say, things are less scary when you can fall back on savings. With going to college, you don’t have any more savings. Just saying.
Lie 4
Safety first
I could speak on this, but honestly, Mike Rowe did a fantastic job talking on the subject.
Lie 5
Follow your dreams.
Again Mike Rowe has talked about this so there isn’t too much to cover. But why do you need to “follow you dreams”? Why is a “normal job” (take a look at like #2) a bad thing? Even jobs that should have been a bad experience purely based on the work being performed, I have actually quite enjoyed! This is because of the people I was working with. It’s not about what you are doing, it’s about who you are doing it with.
Lie 6
Apple.
The company of Apple has their consumers under a pretty tight grip. As of writing this they are currently undergoing multiple lawsuits about their monopolistic tendencies. However, consumers keep ignoring their bad treatment and keep buying. I nearly fell into the trap of buying Apple thinking: “Why, it’s what all the PROgrammers use” (in promotional material). It’s what everyone at college uses. It’s what the cool kids use. I was lucky enough to already know GNU/Linux at this time so I could just load up KDE Plasma and change my theme to “Big Sur” to get the Apple “experience”. It sucks. Glad I could just switch back to using AwesomeWM or Gnome and that it didn’t take $1500+4 to figure out that Apple sucks. No matter how good their aesthetic is.
Lie 7
Marketing
“You work a job you hate to buy s**t you don’t need.”
- Tyler Durden
Marketing is manipulation, there is no two ways about it. Many things you own you were probably manipulated into purchasing. (Just see Lie #6).
Lie 8
Men are women are equal.
I suppose this can be true depending on how you mean it. But most likely you don’t mean it as you should.
If we are going to say, “men and women have equal value”, then absolutely. However many people want to say “men and women are mentally equal” absolutely not. Or how about “men and women are physically equal”, that’s completely wrong. (And why we need to keep men out of women’s sports.)
I would go into this more here, but I have a whole other post about this subject. (I will link it here once it’s done.)