what if . . .
By Becky Lyn Rickman, Managing Editor
An introspective look into a bad behavior of mine
What if we all stopped clicking on teaser links that say things like, "You should see what they look like now!" or "Hot celebs who married hideous spouses." or "These child stars went to the dogs!" What if we stopped sharing them and making them go viral.
What if, when we hate a story and all the attention it's getting, we stopped clicking, reading, talking about, and sharing, which just perpetuates the very thing we're complaining about going viral? I am so guilty of this. I click and close because it is so offensive, but the damage is already done. Another little lipstick mark goes up on the story. The rubbish is glorified.
I had, emphasizing the word 'had,' a nasty problem that would begin several times a day with an interesting 'teaser' on the side of my Facebook page. They know exactly how to grab your attention! Crafty little buggers. When I was young, I read nothing but biographies. I wanted to know what made people who they were. I wanted to know how they rose above dire circumstances and became someone useful and helpful. But, that changed as I got older. I went from Clara Barton and George Washington Carver bios to celebrities who had gone off the deep end in one fell swoop.
The bigger problem is that, if you are not vigilant, you can be sucked into it deeper and deeper. Click to one article and there are 12 more intriguing stories just waiting for that click. And you click and you click and you click and you begin to not believe in goodness anymore.
I had stopped reading about nobility and began exploring the degradation of the human condition. I shook my head when I read about this celebrity or that and even did that tongue clicky thing that is momspeak for 'shame on you, girlie.'
I realized that I was wallowing in the dregs and gutters of humanity and breaking two very sacred commandments:
First, from Proverbs 24:17 "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: . . ." I was doing just that. I was smugly and piously delighting at how low some humans (see: children of God) had fallen.
Second, the great commandment, one of the big 10, from Exodus 20:3, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." I was investing more time and energy exploring celebrities than scripture heroes.
A crucial third point, Psalms 35:15, "But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not:" How would I feel if this happened to me—I sunk low in my behavior and found myself in the tabloids?
So, here's my new quest:
1.) Begin my day with a devotional that includes scripture reading, prayer, hymn and doing some family history, studying what made me who I am today.
2.) Go back to the classics for reading pleasure, beginning with what I believe to be one of the greatest stories every told, scriptures aside, Les Miserables.
3.) No more clicking! Unless it is an uplifting story about triumph of the spirit.
4.) Not waste my breath, saying to people, "Did you read that story about . . .?";
5.) Not participating in conversations about the trashy degradation of human beings who are children of God and don't need all the negative attention just because it is attention;
6.) Praying for humanity to get a little more humanity;
7.) Thinking kinder thoughts of a more noble and loftier nature. What we are doing is just as bad as laughing at the kid at school who has holes in his shoes or the girl who got pregnant her sophomore year of high school. Join me in a quest for more humanity and nobility and compassion.
Let's stop littering with human beings we think are beneath us. After all is said and done, if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. End of speech. *MIC drop*
What if, when we hate a story and all the attention it's getting, we stopped clicking, reading, talking about, and sharing, which just perpetuates the very thing we're complaining about going viral? I am so guilty of this. I click and close because it is so offensive, but the damage is already done. Another little lipstick mark goes up on the story. The rubbish is glorified.
I had, emphasizing the word 'had,' a nasty problem that would begin several times a day with an interesting 'teaser' on the side of my Facebook page. They know exactly how to grab your attention! Crafty little buggers. When I was young, I read nothing but biographies. I wanted to know what made people who they were. I wanted to know how they rose above dire circumstances and became someone useful and helpful. But, that changed as I got older. I went from Clara Barton and George Washington Carver bios to celebrities who had gone off the deep end in one fell swoop.
The bigger problem is that, if you are not vigilant, you can be sucked into it deeper and deeper. Click to one article and there are 12 more intriguing stories just waiting for that click. And you click and you click and you click and you begin to not believe in goodness anymore.
I had stopped reading about nobility and began exploring the degradation of the human condition. I shook my head when I read about this celebrity or that and even did that tongue clicky thing that is momspeak for 'shame on you, girlie.'
I realized that I was wallowing in the dregs and gutters of humanity and breaking two very sacred commandments:
First, from Proverbs 24:17 "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: . . ." I was doing just that. I was smugly and piously delighting at how low some humans (see: children of God) had fallen.
Second, the great commandment, one of the big 10, from Exodus 20:3, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." I was investing more time and energy exploring celebrities than scripture heroes.
A crucial third point, Psalms 35:15, "But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not:" How would I feel if this happened to me—I sunk low in my behavior and found myself in the tabloids?
So, here's my new quest:
1.) Begin my day with a devotional that includes scripture reading, prayer, hymn and doing some family history, studying what made me who I am today.
2.) Go back to the classics for reading pleasure, beginning with what I believe to be one of the greatest stories every told, scriptures aside, Les Miserables.
3.) No more clicking! Unless it is an uplifting story about triumph of the spirit.
4.) Not waste my breath, saying to people, "Did you read that story about . . .?";
5.) Not participating in conversations about the trashy degradation of human beings who are children of God and don't need all the negative attention just because it is attention;
6.) Praying for humanity to get a little more humanity;
7.) Thinking kinder thoughts of a more noble and loftier nature. What we are doing is just as bad as laughing at the kid at school who has holes in his shoes or the girl who got pregnant her sophomore year of high school. Join me in a quest for more humanity and nobility and compassion.
Let's stop littering with human beings we think are beneath us. After all is said and done, if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. End of speech. *MIC drop*
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, click a button on any page to send email with details of the request.