I feel like most everyone in this country has simply lost their sense of humor. Social media is filled with hate and criticism and inaccuracies oft repeated and Retweeted.
I don’t know what happened to the United States I used to know. When did we become so petty and vindictive and just downright mean? Is it our isolation? Is it our inability to truly, maybe physically connect to others? Are we losing our humanity?
Today a Facebook “friend” posted a critical remark about Melania Trump’s shoes! Her heels were too high and inappropriate for a visit to flood-ravaged Houston. (The Trumps weren’t actually in Houston, however.)
I unfollowed the friend who posted that. Then, after I thought about it, I went back and unfriended her. She isn’t really a friend. Just someone I used to work with whose views are so far removed from my own we might as well be from different planets. I’ve got no time or interest in what she has to say or what she posts.
This kind of ridiculous and mindless criticism is what our country has come to. I’m baffled and I’m sad and I don’t have any idea how to “fix” it.
As our social media activity increases we become more and more anti-social. The harder we try to be heard the more difficult it becomes. The more we want to be seen, the less we are noticed.
When I don’t know what else to do, I pray. I try to remember words I heard a long time ago. Words I’ve never forgotten. Words to live by. Words spoken by an animated rabbit named Thumper. Words his mother taught him. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
That will be my prayer. That we would all follow those wise words.
