Our culture is filled with man-made traps, situations worth avoiding. They have three elements:

  1. They’re seductive. Traps offer a benefit and they make it easy to walk in.
  2. They are hard to get of. Changing your mind isn’t enough.
  3. Someone else benefits more than you do.

Because of the third element, the organizer or beneficiaries of a trap can spend time and money to make it ever more seductive and to conceal the nature of what you’re actually signing up for. They’re taking a long term view, but humans, particularly humans in a jam, tend to look for only the short-term relief a trap offers.

Begin by identifying the traps that are set for other people, traps they don’t see but you learn to notice. Soon, you’ll start seeing the traps that are being set for you.