When you open social media, you are bombarded with information. It is astounding how many experts seem to exist, and how each one appears to be doing their absolute best to get you to click on their video, take their advice, buy their product, use their method, or follow their system.

They speak with smiles, ease, and most importantly: confidence. They are so sure. They insist that if you do this thing, use this device, follow this plan, or take this supplement, you will get this outcome. Click now. It won’t last. And if you miss the window, G-d help you.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people said all kinds of things with astonishing confidence. Heat your child’s respiratory tract with a blow dryer. Drink bleach. Take this. Avoid that. Do this one thing and you will be protected. It amazed me. If stopping a global pandemic were that simple, would the world have shut down? Would hospitals have filled? Would families have been destroyed?

We see the same thing everywhere. Everyone has the solution to health, birth, parenting, weight loss, hormones, trauma, anxiety, marriage, politics, war, peace, and the Middle East. Always with certainty. Always in a few simple steps. Always with the implication that everyone else is either too foolish, too corrupt, or too blind to see what they see so clearly.

But if the answer were truly that........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)