What if your frustration or excitement with your government was misplaced? How should you think about governing with greater power and for more joy?

No one is perfectly happy with the government of their country, state, district, city or village. The spectrum probably goes from “strong dislike and distrust” to “very happy but would like there to also be more of (blah) and less of (blah)”.

You may or may not vote people into power and you may or may not protest or demonstrate against the current government where you are, but you must not fool yourself by forgetting about the ground reality.

If you would like to improve your self-governance and don’t want to try and risk failing, do get in touch – transformation guaranteed!

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Contents

The Purpose of Government
1234Taxation Vexation
1234Security – External Borders
1234Security – Internal
1234The Smoking Gun
1234The Alcohol Lie
1234Junk Food Elephant
1234Pandemic Paradoxes
1234National Health Systems
1234Emergency Services
1234Transport Infrastructure
The Solution – Self-Government
Parting Message

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The Purpose of Government [top]

Whether for your family, your apartment building, city, state or country, a government exists for decision making – primarily to do with resource allocation.

As someone who is systematic in their way of life and organized with their thoughts and actions, I am all for the idea of government. That’s government with a lowercase ‘g’. At my age it is not surprising that I have lived, worked or travelled in many countries in the past. I have rarely been happy with a government system, mostly because my own needs are typically very different from those that are serviced by the government’s policies and the resultant action or inaction. But this is nothing special about me – just about everyone in any country will have some complaint about their government’s policies even if they are not willing to air them publicly.

Taxation Vexation [top]

Like almost everyone else around you, you have been programmed to act in ways that demonstrate that your external wealth is more important than your internal wealth. You know in theory that the former only serves the purpose of supporting (or hurting) the latter.

The richest in any country are often the ones avoiding taxes that fund government activities and projects. How you manage your tax bill is something I leave up to you. What I am suggesting today is that you focus on what is truly important – the direct and indirect taxes you pay for misgoverning your internal wealth.

But first, let’s talk about the external governments around you.

Security – External Borders [top]

It will be the greed of individuals within your own government that will drive them to have a defence budget that is much larger than the country needs. If you pay taxes to the US government, for instance, a part of it goes to the shareholders of companies that are part of the Military-Industrial-Complex.

What can you do? Don’t believe that whom your government calls your external enemy is your enemy. Usually, the enemy is within. Monitor your own Interface between the Internal-External Divide.

Security – Internal [top]

In so many countries around the world, the police force is used to harass and subjugate specific sections of the population rather than their touted mission “to serve and protect”.

What can you do? Educate yourself! Those citizens being troubled by agencies of your government have basic needs and future hopes for their loved ones just like you do.

The Smoking Gun [top]

Beyond the facetious arguments around tax revenues increased and the desire to keep addicted citizens with voting rights happy, anyone with half a brain would say that smoking should be completely banned. Yet, governments will not ban it. The step that New Zealand took recently to place a partial ban on cigarette sales is a good first step. A small country, but it is leading the way. Perhaps more governments need to be led by women?

Do not wait for your government to ban smoking. Besides banning it in your own life, remind those around you that the many individuals within the government bureaucracy are financially benefitting from the status quo that permits the sale and possession of non-essential carcinogens.

The Alcohol Lie [top]

There are only 7 countries in the world sensible enough to impose a complete ban on alcohol. Unfortunately, most of those countries tend to not be particularly fun to live in even without such a ban.  You probably live in one of the other 188 countries and will feel disappointed that even in the 21^st century a large fraction of medical doctors are clueless about the fact that alcohol is a Group-1 carcinogen like asbestos, plutonium and smoking!

Do not wait for the government to ban alcohol. Don’t believe the lie.

Junk Food Elephant [top]

Junk food is the elephant in the room. Some governments have regulated the advertising industry. But the advertising industry is just providing a service, facilitating Big Food that looks to harm you and your loved ones many times a day. Whether they torture or kill for profit through animal agriculture, or simply target sections of your brain with cleverly designed doses of salt, sugar and fat, there is little your government (wherever you are in the world) is doing to protect your fellow citizens from this very real virus!

Do not wait for the government to ban junk food. Ban it from your life, from your home – start by consciously avoiding those aisles at the supermarket. If your children are allowed TV or screen time, train them to switch off their senses when the advertisements are streamed through. My children had to follow their mother’s strict and effective rule of “put it on mute” whenever there were advertisements on TV. Now, 15 years later, they are still benefiting from that simple rule as independent adults!

Pandemic Paradoxes [top]

Even if you were brainwashed into thinking things were great before the COVID-19 pandemic, it must have struck you as strange that in so many countries, gyms, where the fit and healthy typically go, were kept shut during the pandemic, but fast-food Big Food companies were allowed to keep operating and delivering junk, including to the unfit and unhealthy. [Read COVID-19 – It is not a war against a virus]

Beyond supporting your gym or health club in the ways that you can afford to, become self-reliant for taking your physical existence to an optimal level.

National Health System [top]

It is shameful that, even after the COVID-19 pandemic, government budgets for the prevention of disease are tiny compared with their budgets for the machinery of treatment.

The Medical-Industrial-Complex is no less evil than the Military-Industrial-Complex. Do not expect the system to change and provide prevention or cures when treatment is so much more lucrative. There is no money to be made from dead people and there is no money to be made from healthy people. The money to be made is in sick people. Hello doctor!

Do not rely on your government’s sickcare system – you may have to pay taxes to fund it but you are better off working towards never ever needing it other than for accidents.

Emergency Services [top]

Accidents happen and emergencies are never anticipated. In some remote parts of your country, you will face death, extensive hurt to self or destruction of property before the government emergency services can reach you. The saddest situations are when these happen in urban centres because of poor planning by governments. Fire regulations flouted and roads choked with no space for emergency services vehicles to go any faster than a squeaky old bicycle!

Do not be willfully blind to all that you do to yourself that will definitely require emergency services one day. [Read: Dying by 80 – Living to 110]

Transport Infrastructure [top]

If you find yourself complaining about intense road traffic when you have to get around in your car or Uber ride – give thought to the fact that there are probably greener forms of transport that you are not taking because you don’t want to be inconvenienced. You can curse the government but it would be better to have action rather than words. Next time, take the bus! [Read: How green are my movements]

The Solution – Self-Government [top]

Given that I am typically not eligible to vote or to stand for office in most places that I live in during any typical year, I accept what the political system along with its policies imposes upon me.

For most of my life, my ancestral village did not have electricity. Even now, being there is very close to off-the-grid living and it’s one of my most favourite places to spend part of the year in. But that is not what I am suggesting you do as part of self-reliance. It is great when a government is able to provide utilities and infrastructure to remote parts of a large country. The gold is in using them only as much as is necessary. Every kilogram of concrete places a burden on the planet. Every litre of piped gas takes away from future generations of humans and other animal species.

Unfortunately, what comes into “modern village life” in any part of the world is the worst of the outside world – with the political system turning a blind eye. The primary way this destroys village culture is insidious – through television and, in particular, advertising on television.

If you want to be a model citizen you can reduce the burden on society by doing the many things I’ve suggested above. Not smoking, being a teetotaler, walking-cycling, using public transport, eating like a vegan.

Besides being a lower burden on the nation’s exchequer, you will be good for the planet too.

Parting Message [top]

Between your birth and death, you will be overshadowed by many forms of external government that will come and go. You will outlive almost all of them. What will determine the quality of your journey is the internal government you preside over.

If you would like to improve your self-governance and don’t want to try and risk failing, do get in touch – transformation guaranteed!

Puru

Dr Purnendu Nath spends his waking hours focusing on helping individuals and organizations reach their goals, to make the world a better place. He speaks, writes and advises on topics such as finance, investment management, discipline, education, self-improvement, exercise, nutrition, health and fitness, leadership and parenting.