The media spends billions trying to program us each day. You may think you are above the white noise of advertising, but we are not. With gas prices so high, why would you have an SUV? Are you really backroading that much these days? With so many SUVs on the road, why would you risk driving an energy efficient hybrid when it could get run over and hardly noticed by the Escalade?  This is all the influence of advertising and the media.

Something or someone influenced you to make that purchase regardless of your rationalization.

Of course, our culture programs us throughout our lives until a paradigm shift occurs which takes us all along with it. The women's liberation movement was another rejection of past programming that, while important, significantly disrupted the family unit in this country and added massive pressure to women. Woman were pressured to abandon their role as mother which led to another set of programming as children were starting to be raised in day cares instead of homes.

The shift from the conservative traditionalist from the 40s and 50s to the baby boomers of the mid-60s was huge. The music, the sexuality, the questioning of authorities signaled a massive rejection of the programming of those early eras. Of course, all it really did was replace the programming with a newer, more confused version. The utopian ideals of a free love and peace society never reached fruition. Instead, it left in its wake a decade or more of broken promises and divorced families.  But, the music was great.