- Political babbling (whether in my camp or not) that makes my skin crawl - I want to find the originator and throttle them (in a gentle Christian way of course.) Come on, for crying out loud, screaming at me and a million others about what's going on in Washington isn't going to change a thing. It just brings everyone down. We need encouragement! Send your gripes and opinions to your local newspapers and talk radio if you must air your feelings. Better yet, send them to your Representatives and the President! Please. Complaining to each other NEVER fixed anything. As my mother was so wont to say (and so right,) the squeaky wheel really does get greased. (I have proof but that isn't the forum today.)
- Sweet and sappy junk dazzling with sparkly animations that make me want to vomit from the overload of sugar. I feel terrible because I find them stupid and childish and at the same time guilty for being so judgmental - not to mention it was kind of whoever sent it to consider me worthy of all that sap. Then of course at the end, the guilt prompter is always there: Send this on to all your girlfriends who have made a difference in your life...
- Send this on to prevent breast cancer. Excuse me? Just like the political diatribe, cancer is not going to be cured because I send a message to all the women in my address book. Cancer will be cured when we stop ingesting, breathing and drinking chemical laden food, air and liquids. Or of course those who feel led can always donate their money to cancer research if they really want to support the pharmaceutical companies that continue to develop new poisons to eradicate healthy cells for the sake of killing cancers. If we eat right to begin with we won't have to poison ourselves to be cured from the cancer we got from eating poison foods.
- Dirty jokes that I wouldn't share with criminals let alone anyone I associate with.
- Funny jokes I'm glad I got when I needed a good laugh.
- Stupid jokes that make me want to find the originator for a good gentle Christian throttling
- Catholic novenas with admonishments to pass them on or "or else..." which make me want to find the originator and send them to an Iraqi torture chamber.
- Messages that tell us to pass it on to so many people and see what happens - the only thing I want to see happen is the originator being throttled by 13 gentle Christians.
- Messages of false hope of any kind - our hope is in Jesus. Period. Who, by the way, would probably have been as disgusted by all the junk pass-it-on messages as I am. Didn't He say something about not wasting words?
- Poignant and touching military photos with a message encouraging people to pray for our men and women serving (these I often share but I always delete the line that tells people to pass it on.)
Here's the "thing" (what the heck does that mean anyway?) My complaint is against anything that tries to guilt people into passing it on, things like "if you love Jesus..." or "if you care about our soldiers..." and wasting precious time. Give it a break. Many times I ask, does this person have absolutely nothing else to do with their time? Surely the bathroom needs to be cleaned...
The originator tries to make the receiver feel like a dolt if they don't pass it on. How do they know the recipient is not personally writing an encouraging letter to 50 military members every month, sending care packages, praying for them, sending money to their families, or any number of things people do to encourage others? We're all intelligent thinking human beings and these admonishments assume we can't think for ourselves. My mantra is, I'll pass it on if I think it's worth sharing whether you want me to or not. Don't tell me what to do because I will probably do just the opposite on principle. Most people I know feel pretty much the same way.
Ever watch the TV show Lost? That whole show is based on that deep-seated bit of narcissism in all of us that says, don't tell me what to do. We all want to be credited with enough brains to make our own decisions. The minute someone tells us what to do, our hackles go up. That is at the core of our rebellious sin nature.
Next time you pass on a message, perhaps if you want people to actually do something with it, let them decide what to do. Chances are, if it's worth passing, they'll share it.
Oh yeah, and one other pet peve. Leave my email address out of it. If you must forward a message, be sure to delete everyone's email address from the body of the message and use the Bcc: address line so their addresses don't show up to everyone on the planet. If you need some education about the dangers of exposing one another's email addresses, please check this out. This is VERY IMPORTANT. One thing not addressed is that there are actually Net Bots that crawl the web looking for email addresses for SPAM purposes. They do not see addresses in the Bcc line but they are able to cull addresses from the To: and Cc: lines. When I send a message, love you so much that I address personal messages using Bcc: even if it's only going to you. Thank you.
In the love of Jesus, have a good day...If you feel like it.
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