Play the Game

Life is propaganda!... the board game, that is. I never really realized this until Mr. Wong told us that the Japanese had board games where the most "Western" people would win in the game, to convey that society should be Western and modern. It was so scary to think about the government brainwashing these people, and making people think something... until I realized that it happens to us too, in the modern day.
Have you ever played Life? If so, you know that is has delivered a perfectly sculpted view of the way life ought to be. It gives you a few options so you subconsciously feel like you're making your own decisions, but other than that, it basically tells you how to live your life. In order to succeed in this game, you must go to school, get married, have kids, and have a basic job like a doctor, teacher, or an actress. Now, on the surface it seems like a very fun and entertaining game, and I honestly loved playing it. However, now that I look deeper, this was the media's way of telling little kids that this is the way you must live your life. In order to succeed in actual life, you must live your life the way it is spelled out in the game. It is cynically brilliant.
I don't know when the last time I played this, or if people still do. If it is not very common, I can see why. Nowadays life is different. You can get married to the same sex. You don't have to go to school to be successful. There are so many more jobs than the fifteen cards provided in the game. Life is not the same, but people still play the game.
These changes in society are evident in the update of classic toys like Barbies, who now have curves, and more. However, the media is still displaying this image that we need to be like this. Before, we want to be too skinny and too perfect, and our society is filled with narcissistic shells. Now, it's okay to be bigger and eat what you want and do what you feel like, but now out society is filled with fat, lazy, unproductive rebels, and we have a health epidemic on our hands.
Anyways on that light note, don't forget to live your life the way you want to. Not the way a board game or toy tells you to.

*Note: the safety route and risky road is a fallacy in itself, there aren't only two choices in life.