Cooperate

Cooperate: (v) to work or act together or jointly for a common purpose or benefit.

Life sent me a text.

It asked me if I had a few minutes to sit down and discuss some things. Normally I would have been responsive, but it was a busy day.

Sometimes I intend to return messages to people but then I get absorbed in happenings and my very, very good intentions are set to the side. These people are often offended. They don’t understand how much I really wanted to get back to them.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

So Life texted me again. This time the request came with four exclamation points. I hate it when people overuse punctuation on the Internet, don’t you? It’s so ignorant. Do they really think that’s going to get my attention?

So this time, I refused to respond on principle—surely it must be some sort of scam.

The following week Life texted me again, and insisted that something needed to be done very soon, or else.

I despise it when people threaten me. Don’t you? Because if you follow up, trying to find out what it’s about, you discover they just played you to get your attention.

Honest to God, if I chased every person warning me about something, or informing me about another thing, I wouldn’t get anything else done.

So I came up with an emoji which I sent back to life. A cute one. I think it was a creature sticking out its tongue.

That kind of summed up my feelings about Life’s interference in my daily activity—especially the pushiness I was feeling from the unwanted messages.

Then all of a sudden, I died.

I arrived at some sort of place that seemed to have an atmosphere, but was completely suspended in time. Standing there waiting for me was Life.

Not seeing anybody else to talk to, I stepped up to Life and said, “What happened? I was too young for this.”

Life looked at me smugly and said, “Did you get my texts?”

“Yes,” I replied, wondering what in the heck that had to do with anything under the sun.

Life took a deep breath. “I texted you because I wanted to let you know that several alarms had gone off in your body which you were ignoring, and you needed to go get yourself checked out.”

I frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me it was important?”

Life groaned, then spoke slowly. “You see, that’s the problem with human beings. You think anything that you don’t know about is an interference, never realizing that most problems can be avoided if you will just stop, listen, receive the message, and cooperate.”


Donate Button


Subscribe to Jonathan’s Weekly Podcast

Good News and Better News

 

Adorable

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Adorable: (adj) inspiring great affection; delightful; charming: e.g. she looked adorable

FBY.

It’s my new abbreviation for Facebook Yap.”

I, for one, have always been suspicious of anything that steps in to replace something of importance which really does not capture the value–just fills the space.

Muzak, for instance, is no substitute for a concert. It deserves to be in an elevator, enclosed and prevented from being broadcast to too many corners of the earth.

That’s what I feel about the conversations, chatter and implications of Facebook.

So when I look at the word “adorable,” which used to have some tenderness, in my mind it has just become a way to describe a picture you received from someone, which you did not ask for, of their dog or child, and you are desperately groping for a way to tell the person you received it. so you send back a quick message, which says, “adorable” with twenty-four exclamation points. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

FBY has ruined so many words.

I can no longer use “cute,” especially S-O-O-O-O-O-O-O cute.

“Inspiring” is gone, since any little piece of drivel someone sends that they feel has a deeper meaning you must proclaim to be divinely unctioned.

Some of the old standards which should have died a long time ago have been dug up from the grave and re-shot in the head:

  • “They’re growing up so fast …”
  • “You can tell they’re in love …”
  • “I miss you …”
  • “Wish you were here …” and
  • “It’s really been a rough day …”

It saddens me–because there ARE things in life that truly are adorable. I once watched a bug try to crawl up a tree. Every time it got to the same place, gravity took over and it would fall. The little critter tried about seven times, and then apparently tapped some unused brain cells and decided to walk around the tree instead. That’s kind of adorable.

But when we have created a medium which focuses on US more than anything else, we have to also conjure a response to the offerings of others who intrude on our self-promotion by sending their own press clippings.

I have made the mistake of trying to write something truly significant or meaningful in one of the “comment” spaces, only to be ignored, and probably relegated as a “non-FBY’er” who still believes in complete sentences and knows the difference between “your” and “you’re.”

I value progress–as long as it goes FORWARD.

But I’m not willing to call something progressive that takes us back to the status of scrawling on cave walls, stepping back and grunting our approval.