When I hear someone say that everyone has the freedom to do whatever they want, it sends a shiver down my spine. In most cases, this means people will keep making the same preventable mistakes over and over, trying to reinvent the wheel simply because society and corporations tell them they’re unique and special, and therefore should they have unlimited access to options and information to truly understand what makes them so. In practice, this floods the market with all sorts of products and services, and we’re expected to navigate these choices alone, figuring out through trial and error–good decisions and bad—until we eventually stumble upon our own “perfect” combination. Only then, we’re promised, will we finally achieve the happiness we were led to expect.
But here’s the catch: for most people, that perfect combination—and the happiness it’s supposed to bring—never arrives. The bad options never disappear. In fact, the number of things people can buy keeps growing and evolving. People repeatedly are making poor decisions that takes a lasting toll on our psychology, physiology, morality, and finances leaving many people feeling lost, confused, and ultimately depressed. Meanwhile, the good decisions that could actually help us aren’t necessarily reinforced. As a result, we live in a society that fails to learn from its past mistakes, and people continue to suffer.
The issue I have with this is that we know there are harmful products, ideas, and behaviors out there—we encounter them again and again—yet we still fail to provide people with the legislation, education, or guidance to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Worse, we rarely reinforce good behaviors. As someone working in psychology, I constantly see depressed, anxious, and stressed individuals coming into my office with the same questions and problems. All I can do is explain why they went wrong and how they could do better. But here’s the key: I keep giving the same answers over and over. That’s why I’ve worked so diligently to create this website, blog, books, and courses—I simply got tired of watching people make the same mistakes again and again, stepping into the same pitfalls, and I decided to do something about it.
The result of my efforts? First, I became extremely happy myself, as I learned what to do and what to avoid. Second, I created a program with real client success stories—people who fixed their lives once and for all. Now, my goal is to take what I’ve learned and apply it on a social and collective level.
Of course, in today’s environment, this might seem impossible, as we’ve built a system where certain individuals and corporations hold too much power, incentivizing us to keep making the wrong choices regardless of the consequences. They flood us with misinformation, distort the truth, and steer us away from what’s right, trapping us in cycles of repeated mistakes.
So I ask: Should we continue letting people “do whatever they want,” stepping into the same pitfalls again and again? Or could we design a new system where people are automatically incentivized to do the right thing from the start? In this new system, we could base decisions on a feedback mechanism, where past decision-making is reviewed, and a better path is suggested and promoted to everyone. That way, people wouldn’t need to learn how to deal with the fallout of their mistakes—because they simply wouldn’t make them. At the same time, we could always go back and review the logic behind certain decisions, so if a decision is ultimately proven to be flawed, we could analyze why it was bad in the first place and propose a new path. The ultimate goal, of course, is to maximize well-being, happiness, and prosperity.
The Role of the Internet and Free Markets
One of the greatest inventions of all time, in my view, is the internet. It gave everyone access to the same information, allowing people to compare what we know collectively, recognize when we’re being mistreated, and demand fair opportunities. Unlike any other tool, the internet has driven the most social change, pushing us as a collective in the right direction.
It has already debunked harmful myths—like the idea that the earth is flat, that witchcraft is real, that some races are superior to others, or that homosexuality and hysteria are mental illnesses. It has exposed how some people wielded unchecked power, how dictators exercised control, and how lies were perpetuated—because now, everything said and done is visible to all.
Recently, we’ve seen governments topple because people could access global information. For example, Nepal’s government was toppled after widespread protests led by Gen Z, who used platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Discord to organize and expose corruption and inequality. The same happened in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, where social media broke the state’s monopoly on information, mobilized protests, and contributed to the fall of long-standing regimes.
Yet, even today, some countries try to repress internet freedom. Governments attempt to suppress dissent and control information, often in response to protests or political crises. They use internet shutdowns and social media blocks to silence opposition, though these actions sometimes backfire by drawing more attention to government repression.
However, there’s also the rising problem of disinformation. Certain decision-makers actively promote false narratives, distort the truth, and prioritize their own well-being at the expense of the masses. They use the context of the free market to justify their decisions, lobbying governments to promote harmful legislation and claiming that markets will equalize themselves in the long term. Meanwhile, markets remain full of bad products, and people are forced into unhealthy habits—like making smoking accessible to teens. They use every trick in the book to promote their self-interest, even if it comes at the cost of others.
In this context, I sometimes see people and governments discussing and implementing concepts similar to those in this blog. Other times, they consciously or subconsciously promote bad decisions worldwide. While there is some progress, my dream is to put this blog into the hands of leaders who can drive real change—not by following fleeting social trends, relying on advisors, letting lobbyists dictate their actions, or making decisions based on gut feelings that altogether produce the same problems we see today. Instead, I want to see people use a real-life map of utopia—a guide to creating a society where we could all live happily, together. After all, that’s what this blog is about.
For more on what we do, visit our website. Stay happy.
