Why Do We Do What We Do? | The Odyssey Online
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Why Do We Do What We Do?

Think differently.

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Why Do We Do What We Do?

I find that more often than not, I spend my time asking myself questions that don’t have answers. What if I were to travel in a straight line into space? Where would I end up? Would I keep going into infinity? Reach some inconceivable “end point?” Maybe I would circle back and find myself where I started. I know that no one really knows the answers to these questions, but I also know that I’m not the only one who asks them. The problem is, if you propose these to someone else, you just get a weird face or a juvenile comment, and they obviously couldn't care less.

One question that I keep coming back to is, why do we all do what we do as a society? As far as we know, we are the only known species in this entire universe with the capacity to design and execute a plan for our futures, and yet many of us just follow the same path without even thinking about it. We are born. Most of us go to school and college. We get married and try our best to succeed economically and worry about politics and debt and all the things that we have created. How can this possibly be all there is to it? It all seems so contrived. The reality is just this really big pretend concept, but it’s a very persistent one.

On a good day, when I pose this question to others, someone will respond with something along the lines of “we obviously go to college to get a good job and to make money.” These aren’t the answers I am searching for. I am well aware of the way our lives are set up for us and what everyone thinks is necessary. But why is this the life we choose to live, and why does our world seem nearly impossible to change?

Albert Einstein once said, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” So how about that? What if everyone thought that way? What if we all realized that this couldn't be all there is to it. That this world is only the way it is because that is what we made it. I want to find people who will examine their thinking. Maybe then I can find a way to travel in a straight line off the path that everyone else is on because I want to finally discover precisely where I could end up.

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