The definition of stress is doing the same thing year after year but expecting a different result, writes Ruta Mave.

If you want to alleviate stress, frustration and disappointment from your life then a sure-fire way that works in the Cooks is to lower your expectations. Don’t set the bar high, don’t aim for the stars that doesn’t work here. Lower the bar, reduce your expectations and you will never be disappointed again, you will also never be surprised, wowed or proud.

Step right up folks, enter the crook islands casino where the house always win. You might win some dollars and dimes but just know the house holds the cards and they win the majority of monies the majority of the time. They also spin the win in such a way that they keep it for themselves while saying they are benefiting the public and everyone believes it.

Casinos are designed to create an atmosphere that keeps you awake and in an illusion that you are winning or can win, they pump oxygen into the gambling halls to induce awake-ness even when your brain has gone to sleep, it’s like a dream state. Welcome to hotel Crook islands, it’s a lovely place, what a nice surprise, bring your alibis. You can check out anytime you want but we are all just prisoners here of our own device.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is now stacked with CIP (Cook Islands Party) government puppets, meaning the people who are turning the tricks at the blackjack table are now the ones we are relying on to tell us truthfully what they are doing with our chips/money.

CIP government members control the spending of tax payer’s money as they see fit. They can give themselves pay rises, travel bonuses and justify it with words their speech writers write, that confuse and befuddle the public then PAC will agree it is wise and sensible.

It is like the tobacco companies telling us vaping is okay because it is sweet which makes it attractive to children and agreeable to adults for the same reasons. It is like energy drinks they are designed in such a way to entice the consumer and hooking them on even though they are consuming far more than they would voluntarily want to. For instance, parents don’t comprehend the damage created by giving a child a can of coke for school. But if you told them to feed their child a cup of espresso coffee with three teaspoons of sugar for breakfast they would jump up and down and be appalled. Even though the can of coke has twice to three times the sugar and caffeine content than the espresso.

The public is malleable and therefore subject to be very gullible, is it any wonder so many are losing money to scammers. The general public trust the government to look after them and look out for them to make sure they are protected and defended at all costs. So, when the government sell them ‘get rich quick’ ideas, like seabed mineral mining or the new purse seine agreement, the public believes them and then they mimic the same.

Prime Minister Mark Brown and his misfit boys are like Fagin and his artful dodgers distracting you with glitter roads or new buildings at the Punanga Nui Market while waiting the ball to fall in their roulette wheel of fortune from green climate funding and diplomatic connected donations.

We need checks and balances made regularly and we are to trust this will be done by the PAC. Let’s not forget when government were owed $12 million in tax arrears, they decided to wipe the slate clean because it affected too many of themselves and their friends? It will happen again because the dice is loaded.

The opposition is calling attention to a law that is going to widen an employment criteria, so like with the police commissioner and Ombudsman the legislation introduced will suit a particular applicant. Prime Minister Mark Brown said: “Let us be reminded it is not just people that are good with numbers or have degrees … we need people of that calibre on a number of our boards. We also need people who have a sense of humanity everyday people who know the struggles and hardships of life so that when we have board discussions the board looks at essentially the bottom line of the balance sheet and also need someone who looks at what the bottom line is and impact on the people”.

So instead of appointing people with the strong leadership skills including empathy who can make decisions without having to be homeless or a failed middle manager. Instead, we are going to lower the bar and allow anyone with a good PR spin or poker face?

God is watching even if the public have their heads in the sand.