Acharya Prashant explains that we all have a ready-made idea of what a good life means. He finds it scary that this idea is not original but has come to us from cheap and dubious sources, such as commercial advertisements. This extends to even the most basic things, like physical fitness. He questions how we have defined fitness, stating that we haven't cared to define it at all but have just bought into the definitions created by others, such as the models who are touted and sold to us as epitomes of fitness. Similarly, the concept of a beautiful face is an idea that has been carefully packaged and marketed. We have been taught to find a particular thing beautiful because it conforms to a certain idea of beauty. This conditioning has seeped down right into our instincts. We don't take half a second to proclaim something as beautiful, but we have never stopped to ask how exactly we found it beautiful. Our instincts have been trained, and the entire self has been sabotaged. Therefore, you cannot trust your thoughts or your instantaneous instincts. He further states that love, too, is an idea. We don't know love, but we all have great ideas about it. If real love comes to you and it doesn't tally with the idea, you would reject love and keep the idea. In fact, we don't want love at all; we want a kind of behavior that tallies with our image of love. This idea of love is all-pervasive, which is why it is very easy for marketers to sell love to us, as they already know what we mean by it. They know that the idea of love places great importance on certain dates and gestures, which is why prices for hotels, roses, and gifts rise accordingly. Your love is not yours anymore; it's a very commercial and social thing.
