The wealthy and their gophers use your insecurities, pain, and loneliness to squeeze money out of us. Thanks to poor parenting, some religions, and some poor educational practices, we are programmed to feel unlovable (original sin), inadequate, or unsafe at a very early age. It is natural to want to avoid or numb these uncomfortable feelings. The easiest way for us to avoid them is to
distract ourselves by focusing on future unrealized things outside our bodies where we will not feel or focus on those uncomfortable present feelings. Here's how we do it. We focus on future goals to prove that we can be useful and deserving. We focus on becoming more perfect to be accepted by others. We worry about the future instead of doing something about it. We post on social media hoping to gain some recognition. When you watch someone throw a ball at a hoop in a basketball game, you don’t feel a thi-i-i-i-i-ng until the ball goes in or bounces off the hoop. Your feelings are suspended. Likewise, we focus on unfinished stories just to put ourselves into a no-feeling “limbo” until we get to the end.
There are many kinds of distractions, but they all have one thing in common, they help us avoid the
present by keeping us reaching for a possibly better future—a resolution, goal, or fix, the next vacation, the next promotion, the next high, or anything in the next 10 minutes, month, or year. For the superstitious, it’s in the afterlife. These little fixes are dangled in front of us to get us to forget our burdens and go where they want us to go.
They keep your mind off your burdens and focused on the carrot.