Currently, I’m reading the book Linchpin by Seth Godin, expert marketer and CEO of Squidoo. The premise of the book is that we all have the capability to be a linchpin, a metaphor for an integral piece of an organization or society, as opposed to a replaceable cog, such as your standard factory or cubicle worker.
As I read through the first few chapters, one section really jumped out at me. It made an impact on me, first, because of my still-fresh memories of chiropractic school and learning all the many things that have no relevance in the outside world.
But then after thinking about it, a second reason came to mind as well. I’ll elaborate after the following excerpt.
If I drill and practice and grade and reward you for years on doing math with fractions, what are the chances that you’ll learn fractions? School does a great job of teaching students to do what we set out to teach them. It works. The problem is that what we’re teaching is the wrong stuff.
Here’s what we’re teaching kids to do (with various levels of success):
Fit in
Follow instructions
Use #2 pencils
Take good notes
Show up every day
Cram for tests and don’t miss deadlines
Have good handwriting
Punctuate
Buy the things other kids are buying
Don’t ask questions
Don’t challenge authority
Do the minimum amount required so you’ll have time to work on another subject.
Get into college
Have a good resume
Don’t fail
Don’t say anything that might embarrass you
Be passably good at sports, or extremely good at being a quarterback
Participate in a large number of extracurricular activities
Be a generalist
Try not to have other kids talk about you
Once you learn a topic, move on
You can probably see why it was so easy to relate this section of the book to my recent experience in chiropractic school. But in that list, I felt something was missing. After thinking about it, the following is what I would add to the list:
Don’t question modern medicine because it always knows best
I think this one part of the book is very important because it sums up the shortcomings of our society’s educational system, which, in my opinion, also includes our views and outlook on health.
We are taught that when medical doctors tell us to take a pill, get a shot, or succumb to surgery, we should simply nod our heads obediently, say yes, and take the pill, get the shot, or have the surgery. Our school systems advocate that line of thinking simply by employing school nurses with the authority to offer Tylenol, aspirin, or even Ritalin.
Modern medicine is fantastic… in EMERGENCY situations. Every other situation, not so much. If I have an arm dangling by a tendon and gushing blood after a bad car accident, a specific chiropractic adjustment to my atlas (C1) vertebra won’t do much for me.
But the pharmaceutical companies and the AMA have taken it a million steps too far. Conjured up conditions and the new drugs that supposedly “cure” them are all around us.
We are told we can’t survive without a pill and/or an inhaler for our asthma.
We are told that we will die of infectious diseases if we don’t get vaccinated, even though we need numerous booster shots because the vaccines don’t really work the first time… or the second time, third time, etc.
We are told that we are sick because we still have our tonsils and that taking out our tonsils will keep us from getting sick even though we will actually be sicker without our tonsils.
If you stop to critically think about some of this stuff, taking into account the agendas of the companies and people peddling these ideas, you will realize that most of it is laughable.
Just know this: We are not junk and we were not made with defects. I personally believe God created us after His image. I highly doubt He had an arthritic knee, asthma, or needed His blood pressure medication. So why would we?
Our bodies are perfectly capable to heal themselves, as long as no nervous system interference is present. Chiropractic can help with this. Add in a healthy, plant-based diet, exercise, sunshine, and sleep and you definitely won’t have a need for drugs, shots, or surgeries.
Pills, shots, and surgeries DO NOT equate to health. Billion dollar advertising says differently, But how much credibility can you give a drug or shot when the company offering it to us stands to make billions of dollars, despite having no unbiased research to prove its efficacy (H1N1 vaccine, Gardasil, Vioxx, Celebrex, etc.)?
It is high time our society starts recognizing this and starts questioning modern medicine, because in my opinion, it DOES NOT have our best interest at heart.
That’s thinking like a linchpin.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Great points Brandon! This is something that we have to face day in & out, b/c how many of the ideas that we’ve been brought up with were simply just trying to control us by someone else’s standards. Our current health and financial situations are in the situations that they are because we’ve not been allowed to think for ourselves for so long, and we were told what to expect. Conformity will bring us to collapse of our infrastructures, and that should scare more people than not following the status quo. We must start to learn our own bodies and minds well enough to know what we want, and go for it! We must take care of our selves, and listen to our own body telling us what’s going on. Without that, not only will we fail to live our own lives, but we will destroy the lives of those around us. We must be the LINCHPIN in our own lives!!