Don't Believe What You're Told

Today I was waiting at the checkout line at Stater Bros, and in front of me were a mother and daughter. I first noticed them because the daughter (maybe 11 or 12?) was talkative and energetic. We were surrounded with tabloids as is usual at the grocery store, where I'm usually more focused on buying groceries.

The girl let out an "Oooo!" and placed her face close to a copy of Us magazine. She read aloud the bold-faced headlines, which centered on Britney Spears and her custody battle, and asked her mom what one phrase meant before pausing. Then came a comment which became a doorway to another issue. "She's skinny again." This girl is aware of Britney Spears' weight (sadly, I am too, because when I log into Yahoo! or try to find out who won at the MTV Music Video Awards, information about her is shoved into my line of sight). And for this girl, it isn't a passing thought, but something important.

This girl is also aware of her own weight. Soon she was talking about how fat she was and how she'd like to go on a diet, not in a despairing or hopeless way, but you could tell there was something behind it. She is young, and when I say maybe 11 or 12, I'm shooting high. She is tiny. And she is skinny.

I'm noticing more is just how loudly the voices around us speak. The loud ones. With messages the majority of us take as truth, even though somewhere deep we know otherwise. This young girl was saturated with them, and Mom's relaxed eyes said it was normal.

I live in Southern California, where the voices shout through megaphones into our overdrawn eardrums. And it's so loud we begin to believe it.

We don't slow down.
We overwork.
We lose who we really are in distractions we're told we need.
We disregard our spouses.
We write off countering desires as idealism.

(Was it Hitler who said that people will believe anything they hear often enough?)