How to influence change: part 1

As soon as any one person steps outside of the general media sphere of influence, socially, politically or ideologically, then they start to see the flaws in the corporate governed lives we're conditioned to want.  By realizing that we're given this really specific idea of happiness to conform to, the ideal means of changing your life to be how you would want it should be easy: cut out the parts that are false and useless.  Only when one goes to try do they get to see how deep rooted and culturally ingrained all of the lies and conditioning go.

Its in the little details, its the little things that you probably don't notice.

Its the fact we have to pay to live, period.
Its how people somehow got the mindset that paying more for something means its better.

Its how we get told that not showering everyday and wearing your clothes more than once is filthy

Its how white straight teeth mean someone is better, no basis for better, just better.

Its how a slightly messy house isn't lived in, its slovenly and a sign of a lower class person

Its how social classes matter at all.

Its how all little girls for some reason want diamonds and big weddings

Its how not having a car makes you poor

Its how body hair is dirty

Its how some girls are sluts...just because they're sluts

Its how a date not paying for the meal and everything else was a bad date; even if you enjoyed yourself

How is it we get these silly ideas in our heads that were probably never directly told to us, but we feel some driving urge to conform to?  More importantly, how do we break free from them?  With all of the bullshit being fed to us so subtly, Its up to those who want change to have an active voice in making it happen.  We can't just be fed things we don't want and accept it.  If we want a better future, we can't wait for someone else to make it happen:  we have to fix it for ourselves.

not just soft hearted

A few days ago my mother called me and told me about a cat that had been left at my uncles farm. Its a really common thing to see happen.  The cat was pregnant and only one kitten lived out of the litter, the problem was that the mother cat had no maternal instincts.  She had made no milk and the kitten was abandoned somewhere on the property.  Throughout the whole property you could hear it crying.  My mother kept saying that if I (myself) had been there, I would have looked for the kitten and I'd have bottle fed it and taken it to a shelter.
That is all completely true, I wouldn't have stopped looking for the kitten.  Why didn't she?
Knowing that it was out there should have been enough reason to go look, if it hadn't had anything to eat in days and it was still alive then its just inhumane to not go look.  If you knew it would be upsetting to someone to hear that you couldn't be bothered to help an animal that would die in a terrible way because you were to lazy, what good have you done?
I can't stop thinking about the kitten ,and it breaks my heart.  I've been caught in other situations where I've helped animals just to get laughed at my your typical townie pricks, and they always call you a softy/soft hearted.  At no point will it enter into the equation if what you did was right, you're automatically a "sissy" for caring about anything non human.  That kind of bullshit is just an extension of might-makes-right and the mindset that "its OK to eat animals because they're lesser beings".  Those same statements are why vegans/animal lovers get stereotyped as weak and feminized, which is just more connections to more macho  sexism and stereotypes that not only is compassion bad, but so is being female.
Being dismissive towards people for being compassionate is a huge societal flaw, which only degrades our potential for communication between different ideological groups and segregates social groups.  I'd rather be a soft-hearted animal lover than the alternative, but its still ridiculous for this to be some trope imposed on a group to make them seem bad.