You’re Not in Kansas Anymore and Escaping Your Programmed Life of Should
- Brainz Magazine
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Dana Hatch is renowned for employing a variety of coaching methods to assist leaders in overcoming their struggles and achieving the next level of success.
In a world that demands conformity, Charles Bukowski's powerful question, "Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?" invites us to reconsider the way we live. This article explores how the "factory model" of education, designed to produce obedient workers, shaped our lives and led us to chase hollow goals, leaving us lost in a cycle of expectations. It's a call to break free from societal scripts, reclaim authenticity, and embrace the messy, rebellious journey of rediscovering our true selves.
Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be? – Charles Bukowski
The factory model: How we got here in life
Picture this: a small, brightly colored classroom where the paint on the walls is chipped in places and the faint scent of chalk dust fills the air. The buzzing of fluorescent lights flickers overhead, casting a harsh glare on the neatly arranged rows of desks. A bell rings, startling the room into silence. At the front, a large chart showcases gold stars for those who have expertly conformed to expectations the day before. From your seat, you hear the soft whisper of pencil on paper as children diligently color within the lines, pausing occasionally to cast hopeful glances at their teacher for nods of approval. This was the place where your programming began, shifting your own thoughts and desires to align with an externally imposed script.
Now let’s skip the spiritual foreplay. You weren’t raised. You were programmed. One should.' One gold star. One bite-sized betrayal of your real self at a time. And as you grow into adulthood, the echoes of those early lessons linger in your workplace meetings, social media timelines, and even in the way you pursue success, subtly guiding you to conform to the expectations set by others instead of allowing yourself to even dream your own dreams.
You were never taught how to think. You were taught how to comply. This wasn’t an accident. The modern public school system, yes, even the one with the inspirational posters and pizza Fridays, was originally designed using a factory model. Its goal? To mass-produce disciplined, punctual, authority-respecting workers for the Industrial Revolution. Because guess what the booming economy didn’t need? Free thinkers and emotional anarchists.
Sure, reformers layered in noble intentions: literacy, citizenship, equity. But underneath the mission statements and math drills, the message was clear: Be quiet. Fit in. Do what you’re told. And if you’re exceptional, be exceptional in a way that doesn’t stand out too much and that doesn’t make anyone uncomfortable.
You may have graduated, but most never left that system.
We just traded one factory for another: the 9-to-5. The mortgage. The partner who looks good on paper. The inbox. The Instagram highlight reel. The annual performance review. The slow existential rot of “success.”
Welcome to the American Dream, where you exchange your soul for stability, call it gratitude, and then stay up Googling “How to feel alive again” at 2:14 a.m. while eating gluten-free Oreos and wondering if this is what adulting is supposed to feel like.
Here’s a clue, it’s not!
Like Alice tumbling into Wonderland or Dorothy waking up in Oz, one day you look around and think:
“None of this feels like mine.”
But everyone around you? They’re still hypnotized. Still sipping the Kool-Aid. Still pushing the same damn narrative:
“This is what you should want.”
“This is what you should work so hard for.”
“This is just what being an adult is.”
No, sweetheart.
If you're asking questions, if you're feeling that creeping inner misalignment, if you feel like your life looks right but feels wrong, then I hate to break it to you, but:
You're Dorothy. And you’re definitely not in f***ing Kansas anymore.
Alice in dead-endland
Remember Alice chasing the White Rabbit? That’s you, only the rabbit is a promotion you don’t even want, and Wonderland is a trauma-tinted panic loop. Your therapist says, “Try reparenting,” and you smile like a gold-star kid with no clue what that means. You won’t ask. Can’t risk looking unhealed.
Meanwhile, your inner child is mainlining iced coffee and crying in the car on the way to work, quietly hoping for a minor fender bender. Nothing serious, just enough to justify finally taking a break from a life you’re terrified to admit you never actually wanted.
Every morning, just like Alice, you eat your “should” cookie:
Shrink yourself.
Smile politely.
Be agreeable.
Stay productive.
Every night, you scream into your pillow and call it stress.
Let’s call it what it is: grief. Grief for the version of you that never got a turn, because being real might have gotten you exiled, canceled, or politely beheaded in the Queen of Hearts’ court.
You’re not chasing a dream; you’re running the factory maze. “Shoulds” for walls. An algorithmic Yellow Brick Road under your feet. Dopamine drops crumbs to keep you circling; shame is the hot wire that snaps you back. Imitation feels safe because you were trained to call it safety. The way out starts when you stop sprinting for cheese and climb.
Because here’s the thing your wellness coach forgot to mention: Your brain doesn’t give a damn if you’re happy. It only cares if you’re predictable.
Welcome to the Dopamine Trap. Let’s get nerdy for a second.
Dopamine isn’t the “pleasure chemical.” It’s the seeker, the reward anticipation drug.
It’s the chemical that lights up when you almost get the validation, the like, the raise, the “you’re such a hard worker” compliment.
That’s why your brain rewards the chase more than the outcome. You don’t even need to reach the goal, just believe you’re almost there.
And guess what?
Society is designed to keep you almost there forever. Swipe. Hustle. Achieve. Achieve again. Get the new title. Rebrand your trauma as a LinkedIn win. It’s a system rigged in favor of those who profit from your perpetual chase. The mechanisms of surveillance and monetization ensure that your every move, click, and scroll adds value to someone else’s empire. By mapping who truly benefits from this endless cycle, you gain the power to opt out, to disrupt the artificial scarcity that keeps you running in place.
Never stop scrolling. Never stop striving. Never stop proving.
Your neural circuitry is stuck in a glitch loop, constantly seeking a “you made it” moment that never comes.
Why? Because the system doesn’t want you to arrive. Arrival breaks the cycle. And if you stop running? You might actually start thinking, and that would be (Dangerous.)
Dorothy’s house of bullsh*t
Let’s clear something up. Dorothy didn’t get to Oz because she was brave. She didn’t wake up one day and decide to explore a psychedelic alternate dimension of talking scarecrows and imposter wizards.
Nope. She got yeeted there by a tornado of monotony, routine, and a deep, soul-level dissatisfaction with the grayscale life she was told to be grateful for.
She wasn’t on a quest.
She was trying to escape.
And the second she landed? The advice started rolling in like unsolicited LinkedIn messages from “mindset mentors”:
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road.”
“Stay on the path.”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“The Wizard will fix you.”
“Ignore that weird ache in your chest. You’re just tired.”
Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s not fiction. It’s a Tuesday.
The wizard is a neural glitch
Let’s be honest, the Wizard is your inner critic, dressed in a headset mic and corporate-speak, masquerading as a productivity coach.
The Emerald City is your highlight reel filtered, curated, and carefully lit with 400 lux of self-worth borrowed from other people’s approval.
The Yellow Brick Road? That’s your life algorithm: linear, optimized for performance, and paved with burnout, shame loops, and just enough wins to keep you crawling forward.
This is your brain on autopilot. Your Default Mode Network, the part of your brain responsible for mental chatter and self-referencing, is basically your own personal Wizard of Oz: loud, dramatic, and mostly full of sh*t.
It runs scripts like:
“Keep going, or you’ll fall behind.”
“Stay productive, or you’re worthless.”
“Don’t stop now, what would people think?”
Spoiler: The Wizard has no answers. Just smoke, mirrors, and a damn good marketing team.
And Dorothy didn’t “find” home. She remembered it.
That’s a big difference. She didn’t need a map. She needed to realize the whole journey was about waking up from someone else’s story.
This was not some naïve farm girl skipping toward spiritual enlightenment. It was a woman pushed to the edge who realised that if she wanted her power back, she might have to break some rules and steal a little sparkle while she was at it. The same goes for you. You don’t need permission. You don’t need a guru. You don’t need another soul-numbing checklist promising to manifest your dream life in five easy steps. What you need is to remember what you already know, to torch the blueprint, kick off the glittery heels, and trust your inner GPS, no matter how loud the Wizard screams.
How to burn the f*cking blueprint
Burn the F*cking Blueprint isn’t self-care; it’s sabotage with better posture. If school trained you to perform, burning the script is how you stop being inventory. Start small and honest. Decline the hostage-situation meeting. Take a no-phone walk and repossess your attention from the algorithm babysitting your nervous system. Cook something instead of consuming everything. Tell one costly truth and let belongings recalibrate. HR, your feed, and anyone who prefers you agreeable will not send flowers. Good, disappointment is data. Neurologically, you’re rerouting reward from applause to agency; the maze stops paying when you stop running. Short term, you lose gold stars; long term, you gain a spine. You’re not calming the machine, you’re starving it. Performance is canceled; authenticity just took the stage.
Make a list of 3 things you do out of obligation, not desire.
Then ask: “Who told me this matters?”
Say the scary truth out loud, even if it makes your voice shake, even if it disappoints your parents. Especially if it costs you likes.
Stop calling survival a personality. You don’t need a glow-up. You need a system meltdown. Because healing isn’t cute, it’s not yoga and green juice and “good vibes only.”
Reclaiming authenticity means calling your own bullshit and accepting that some people, especially those who fed on your silence, will be disappointed. It’s scary roles crack, relationships strain, but you choose sanity over a system that profits from your doubt. Meet the ache with self-compassion, clean boundaries, and a small, brave circle. Disappointing others isn’t betrayal; it’s growth. You weren’t lost, just buried under expectations and “success” metrics disguised as mindfulness. This is you digging out.
Just like Dorothy and Alice: you didn’t wander off track, you were shoved down a path you never chose.
But now?
You’re the tornado now, not the girl it dropped. You’re not some wide-eyed girl in Wonderland. You’re a grown-ass human who got conned into playing a role…and now you’re setting the stage on fire.
Let the house fall. Let the rabbit run. Let the Yellow Brick Road crack and crumble behind you.
Because when you stop performing, when you finally choose you, you don’t just wake up. You revolt. You reclaim. You become. And you don’t do it alone.
Picture this: Wednesday nights, five people who are done auditioning meet, two on a couch, three on Zoom. Three agreements open the room: confidentiality, no fixing, and speak from the gut. One person takes a 7-minute hot seat to name the exact truth they’ve been avoiding; the only follow-ups allowed are “What do you want?” and “What will you do by Friday?”
Everyone commits to one micro-dare (send the email, set the boundary, end the performative project), drops it in a shared doc, and the group thread lights up with receipts before the week is out. Small rebellions are celebrated, not titles. That’s how isolation breaks, how conditioning loosens, in public, with witnesses.
Start one: text three people, “No-Performance Lab. 60 minutes on Wednesdays. Three rules: confidential, no fixing, radical honesty. You in?”
Then light the match. Walk while the road crumbles. What rises from the ashes, raw, untamed, unmistakably yours, is you. Bring matches.
Read more from Dana Hatch
Dana Hatch, Executive and Neurolinguistics Coach
As a certified executive and neurolinguistics coach with over 15 years of experience in business consulting, I bring a unique blend of psychological insight and practical business acumen to help leaders and organizations achieve transformative results. My approach combines cutting-edge coaching techniques with deep industry knowledge to unlock potential, drive performance, and foster sustainable growth.
