One day, when I was out shopping, I stopped by the video section, and there on the rack was a DVD titled “Old Laurel and Hardy Hits.” They were two of my favorite comedian. The pictures on the outside of the package showed scenes from their most popular films.  I thought, “What a find! And for only five dollars.” So I bought it, took it home, and popped it into my player.  Soon, I discovered all the sequences were silent films from before the two comedians became a team, and they weren’t very entertaining.  The pictures on the case had been misleading. The advertisers had surmised what people wanted to see, and then used that information to delude the public into thinking that they were getting something they were not.

Advertisers are pro’s at hiding their true intent. They dress up commercials with flashy scenes, pretty girls, handsome men, beach scenes, and people laughing, even if they are advertising laxatives. They play on and encourage our desires.  It is not about whether the product is good for us or not. The bottom line is profit, and underlying profit is usually greed.

Governments sometimes build the successes of their nations on hidden agendas, as well. They tell the general public they are working for the benefit of the people, but their agendas are often not for the good of the whole. They are for the good of factions, or friends, or for the special interests that put them power, which, in the end, is about self.  Such government officials have the hidden agenda of preserving their position and power, and that hidden intent colors every decision they make.

But advertisers and governments aren’t the only ones who operate this way. Most of us do something of this sort everyday in our interactions with others. It might not be based on a desire for money or power, but often, there is some underlying hidden agenda in our actions.  Because of habit and desire, we conceal our intention so that it looks different from what it really is. Desire motivates us to ‘give’ to ‘get,’ and we are so accustomed to acting in this way that it has become a habit. We are asleep to the fact that we even have hidden agendas.

We hide our true feelings about a person or a situation behind a false facade.  “I don’t want this person to think that I don’t like them. I don’t want someone to think I am lazy or selfish by not helping. I don’t want people to know I am sad. I don’t want anyone to see who I really am, what I really feel, what I really think .”  The underlying agenda is the desire to be liked, seen as good, wonderful, kind, generous, happy, and well-adjusted. We may even ask loaded questions, “Does this dress make me look fat?”  We are begging for the answer, “Oh, no, you look terrific.”  Even the person being asked has a hidden agenda of “I can’t really tell this person that dress looks awful on her. It will hurt her feelings, and then I will feel bad.”

It is all about self, and for the most part, we don’t even know we are doing it.  The unconscious motivation is about what ‘I’ feel, what ‘I’ want, how ‘I’ will gain. Every time we look in at ourselves, our outward actions will hold a hidden agenda. The logic behind this is that the ‘looking in’ becomes all about ‘me.’ Continued...

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