CHICAGO - JUNE 30: Tylenol Extra Strength is sold over-the-counter at a drugstore June 30, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. Tylenol contains acetaminophen, an active ingredient found in many pain killers and cold medicines. Today the Food and Drug Administration's advisory panel recommended that the agency reduce the maximum recommended dosage because of concerns over the potential of liver damage. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
CHICAGO - JUNE 30: Tylenol Extra Strength is sold over-the-counter at a drugstore June 30, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. Tylenol contains acetaminophen, an active ingredient found in many pain killers and cold medicines. Today the Food and Drug Administration's advisory panel recommended that the agency reduce the maximum recommended dosage because of concerns over the potential of liver damage. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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How are you feeling today? Tired, run down? Headache? Anxious? Stressed? I have the answer. There’s a pill for whatever ails you. The multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry is working day and night to make sure you never experience another uncomfortable second.

The Big Difference Isn’t So Different

Let’s talk pain relievers.

Your local drug supplier has shelves filled floor to ceiling with pain relievers that address all sorts of common maladies.

The oldest brand name pain reliever would probably be Bayer Aspirin. What’s Bayer’s claim to fame? — Heart attack.

If you need a non-aspirin product then Tylenol would probably be your best choice.

But what if you don’t want to take eight pain relievers per day. Aleve has your back, take two pills, for twelve-hour relief. Life is sweet.

You probably don’t have an ordinary headache you have an Excedrin headache. Gotta be much worse than the normal run-of-the-mill headache.

Got a fever? Turn to Advil the “fever reducer” brand.

What do they all have in common? They all do the same thing but branding and smart marketing convinces you otherwise.

Marketing and Head Games

Suppose you come up with a great product to reduce the symptoms of the common cold. Sneezing, sniffling, coughing, fever, headache, all those Ebola like symptoms.

Your product works great but it has one serious side effect. It makes you too sleepy to safely drive or work when taking it. So what do you do with this super product?

You take it down to the marketing department and they turn the side effect into a beneficial selling point. What’s the cold medicine that helps you sleep? — NyQuil.

Do you really believe you have chance against a 30 second TV ad?

Behavior Modification?

Just a polite word for brainwashing. We are slowly being conditioned to look to outside forces that will reduce or eliminate our pain. Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll all take us somewhere else where we don’t have to deal with reality.

If we change our chest size, get a nose job, lose weight, we’ll feel so much better about ourselves. The more we envision ourselves as helpless or having no control in our lives the easier it is for someone to pick our pocket.

Some Final Thoughts

Today’s society revolves around all forms of communication. People would be more likely to drive off without their child than to drive off without their cell phone.

Rather than having the self-reliance to deal with our problems and challenges we tend to buy glitzy, pre-packaged, forms of self-reliance from third parties.

We actually create our own dependency.

Next time you pop that pill to make things better perhaps you might think about what lead up to the need to pop the pill? Wouldn’t eliminating the cause be better than treating the symptoms?

Maybe that’s the pill you should be taking.

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