This observation is regarding one of social barriers towards employment and housing. Both briefly touched on in Work ethic and employment and What you see here, but only from a general view of those subjects. The personal impact of which I have experienced myself and witnessed others go through.
I’ll explain. Society appears to have put in place multiple restrictions and obstacles to make society harder for some people. Deliberately. It seems remarkably easy for someone to find themselves in a difficult position financially, that is not new. But how they are able to get themselves out of it, has changed.
I noticed it years ago as I got old enough to start looking for work and somewhere to live. I left home a month after turning 18, with no qualifications, a bag of clothes and a cheque for £240 from my stepdad. Headed for somewhere I had visited a couple of times and where I knew someone. Who ironically left for University just as I moved there, but his mum let me sleep on her sofa for a month or so. That was my first leg up, I traded cleaning and school runs for food and somewhere to sleep. I couldn’t get any government help until I had somewhere to live where it wouldn’t compromise their benefits. So I made friends with people, offered to help where I could and tried to form a network. Of people, of places, of opportunities. I got work behind a bar, and at an agency. Cleaned toilets and kitchens, pulled pints, worked in factories or whatever work was going that paid money. I was not fussy or work shy. I wanted better and always believed you have work for it.
At 22 I got my first office job and at 27 I started my own business. Studying and working full time at home to get there. But, and its a big but, I had an extra helping hand along the way. Without parents in my life (long story but from 18 I was on my own) my grandparents stepped up to help me once I had proven I could support myself. They gave me my deposit for my first house at 22 after the office job was held down. Without them helping me, I wouldn’t have been in a stable enough position financially to study, or think about what I wanted to do, and then do it. I get very stressed when worried about money or wondering if I will have somewhere to live. It takes over everything. So I have lots of compassion for people who are having a tough time, and can’t just be positive, or constructive with their thought or time. Worrying about affording food next week and rent is real for many.
But now I shall move to the system that creates that cycle. Everything has a gateway to it now, money through a bank – looking to be made even weirder and more controlled with digital, mentioned in my article Cash. Rent and somewhere to live through a letting/estate agent or council usually, casual jobs through an agency. All of those things are essential for basic living, so if you tighten the reigns on any one of those, the knock on effect is directly on people and how they live.
The middle man gets to decide your fate. If you don’t have a bank account, usually you can’t a job, which means no rental unless you can find a good private landlord directly. Most of the private rentals here state no DSS. That’s not new at all, but many now say no pets. No smoking. No kids. Which of course, is the landlords perogative, but where does that leave someone who is trying to get themselves together or move up a bit. Or when there are 10 people applying for each property, more probably.
People having to cohabitate because they can’t afford not to. Or stuck in a job they hate because there aren’t better paid ones you can do because while they held down wages, they upped the cost of living dramatically. Of course, its easy to say, just leave. Just quit that job, just move somewhere else. And it is. If you don’t mind winging it, and not having any Security initially, and working it out as you go. But not everyone can deal with change or can think on their feet, so I see where they are in a bind. Excuses become obstacles, because there is usually a logical answer to suit any personal situation. But when you are talking generally, not every answer will suit everyone. We all have different needs and wants, but are forced into this one size fits all regime with jumping through hoops for housing and work just so we can lay our head at night in safety and not go hungry. Now with the looming restrictions of making it even harder for people to access basic amenities and securities, it doesn’t look like anyone is getting any kind of helping hand or a break anytime soon.
So all I can hope is that we stop looking to government, councils and authority to help us and start helping ourselves and each other.
I have linked a number of my other recent articles, in case of interest as they are all observations of society.
That word means different things to different people. But for this purpose, it is in relation to how you feel personally in your life. A personal sense of security. What is it in life that makes you feel secure, and the opposite, insecure. To define these things can help somewhat when you are trying to navigate your life and growing up, at any age. You don’t stop growing up just because you get older, quite the opposite. It really is a constant work in progress.
It can be an issue trying to achieve this feeling – because that’s all it is, a feeling of security. We live in a perilous world at the mercy of nature and man alike, so security is in the eye of the beholder. The situation can be the same for two people, yet they feel completely differently about it, that is why it is personal to each individual. And others can affect your security without even knowing it.
We live in a society where we are told what to be afraid of, from a very young age, it is not down to us to learn or decide, we are told. But instinctually, we need to learn these things for ourselves, it’s how we discover part of who we are. Fear can be a big factor, here is a previous post I have written on it taken from the chapter on fear from my book about Hyperphantasia and Aphantasia (Fear – Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere). We even have departments for National Security, obviously the words and image behind it is a powerful one. Keeping the nation safe and secure, and over the years, that same institution has told us what to fear, because let’s be honest, with nothing to be afraid of, it wouldn’t have a purpose would it?
Security can be wrapped up in all sorts of things, money, employment, housing, relationships, as well as the so-called threat of nature. A lack of one of these things can indeed upset the applecart of this feeling. Not even a lack of, just the perception in fact that one of these things may be taken away, or could happen can destabilise someone. People are different, this we know, but do we really take into account each person’s threshold for things? What may be exciting to one, can be terrifying to another. What may seem like danger to one, is adventure to the other. We all have different triggers, internal alarms and reasoning, but we are also prone to emotions, feelings and environment. The pressure of society is actually an all-encompassing one which we are thrust into from birth, and the expectation of everyone to just ‘fit in’ is a bizarre one to me and I can easily see why we appear to have so many problems. I thought people were the problem for years, and that the system was broken. But now I believe differently, the system isn’t broken at all, it was designed to be like this. To make people conform and comply, to mould them into what is required. It’s odd when I gave it thought, real thought. I started from the beginning- a rather quick timeline to follow, but you’ll get the point hopefully.
School – starts at a very young age, putting children into rooms and forcing them to memorise things and stay indoors for long period of time, often sitting still, and now with a rather sinister twist, staying away from each other. It’s a very ordered regimented system for people to start out. Most of your daily hours spent in this environment surrounded by not your kin, restricted from your natural impulses and taught how to behave. Obviously, I know why, so they can churn out ready to work adults who are ‘prepared’ for the outside world. But one which they created. It’s no wonder to me that many people it turns out do not fit the mould, don’t want to be part of their ‘vision’ for people. Government and ruling bodies have a purpose, but it is not to make sure you live a full and happy life. That should be down to you, but they are more there as sinister overlords who steer society in the direction they want it to go. Because they are not seeking a full and happy life, if they were they wouldn’t be hell bent on causing so much grief and pain.
But in the decades that followed the strict school regime being implemented upon children, it was becoming obvious that it wasn’t really working entirely, they still had the ‘rogue element’ which was disruptive enough to make them decide that the next phase of control should be rolled out. You know, for safety and security. And obviously for profit, with pharmaceutical companies leading the way, and doctors rolled it out, using teaching staff as the conduit. Seems like a well-tested formula they knew would work again. Below is a page from The People Shapers regarding this. Awful to think spirited children with high energy levels who didn’t want to be in a box all day were branded unruly and drugged, awful, but not surprising.
For me security is maybe different from others, I do not see the government or extensions of government as there for my protection or for my safety. They have done a number of questionable things to their own people as well as the trail of horrors the UK has littered around the world. Many experiments have been conducted on the unsuspecting British public for decades, which we only get to hear about when they finally get exposed. Here is one that I found disturbing – Germ Warfare Tests on the British Public.
So, when they say they are trying to ‘protect’ me, excuse me if I don’t believe a word they say. I will make up my own mind, based on what I know and what I have seen. They try to use fear to get compliance, so while scaring the public into believing another country would drop chemicals on them, they secretly did it themselves. Then years later tell them, so they were scared at the time, just of the wrong thing. And then it breeds mistrust and fear to think your government would do it again and could be doing it right now. That is a form of psychological warfare, which unfortunately we are now all too familiar with personally as we have been bombarded in what seems to be a very co-ordinated attack on our very being. Joy is being eliminated from life, something that I believe is really quite pivotal to a state of balance and wellbeing. Without that life can become hopeless, and that seems to be the general feeling they are shooting for, without noticing that we aren’t up for that. And quite frankly, people weren’t designed for misery, we are being herded towards it and numbed through various mediums for it.
People have all sorts of motives behind what they say and do, and understanding them should be key. I get a sense of security from not having to question my instinct, although I will always question its reasoning. I don’t need others to validate my opinion, I don’t seek approval for what I know or believe and am not offended in any way if someone believes otherwise. I don’t tell anyone how to behave or live, but would ask that you take the time to just give a bit of thought to your own motives and reasoning for things if you haven’t already. And if you are ok with everything being as it is and you see no problem with the construct of society, then maybe there is nothing for you to reflect on. But if you have noticed that something isn’t quite right, that this isn’t how we were meant to be, then follow that thought…
