Positive Posting

I learned today that it's not a good idea to write a blog post while on hold to pay a bill!

I try to follow a few rules whenever I post anything:

1) Be positive
2) Treat whatever I write as if anyone anywhere could read it
3) Be positive
and
4) Don't post anything I don't mind being repeated

If you say something, the audience is limited. It can be repeated, but most adults realize messages can take on hugely different meanings as they pass through the grapevine.

If you write something, more people can read it if you put it out there (accidentally or on purpose). It can also be ripped up and destroyed so it won't go any further. At worst, it could find it's way to a copy machine, but you have time to intercept it.

If you post something online, it is forever. The moment you click 'save' it's stored on a server that's backed up and referenced by other servers that are backed up and can be on any computer anywhere with any one reading it. Your post will not go away even if someone tried to blow up the internet. It would still be lurking somewhere and released back into the wild once a server somewhere on the planet put it back out there.

Exaggerated? Yes.

Enough truth to hopefully make anyone pause before hitting post? I hope so.

Eventually, when Shane's older I'll have to stop posting as much about him. He won't have memories of being a baby and annoying baby stories are a fact of life, so he can just deal with that. When he's old enough to go to school and think for himself, I'm not going to post as much about him without at least stopping and thinking about it first. He could be a sensitive kid (which is 100% different from the supremely confident, thinks-he's-in-charge-of-everything baby he is now).  Once it's up, it's up.

Also, there's the "you never know who reads something" thing to think about. I purposely leave off last names, change first names up a little bit, and try to avoid making direct references to people as much as I can. A sufficiently determined person can discover a ton about you with only a little information, but I'm banking on the fact I'm no one famous enough anyone would care to go to that length (and if I do become famous one day, it'll be far enough removed so as not to hurt any feelings). This ties into the "be positive."

I feel like the internet is built out of a weird combination of great ideas and knee-jerk reactions. The great ideas take time to be built and put up for others to see, and then the knee-jerk reactions tend to be a hoard of negative remarks that many people wouldn't have the gall to say to a person face to face. I subscribe to Gabriel's Theory of Internet Anonymity, and pray that more people will follow the Wheaton Rule. I try to be positive, because I want the internet to be more positive and it's too easy to throw a pity party.

Complaints are like farts; you don't mind the smell of your own (most of the time).

"Nobody likes a whiner," as Nana frequently told me (even when I thought I had a valid point, didn't feel like I was complaining, and I suspect she just didn't want to hear it, ha ha).

Anyway, that's the thought of the night. I still have a ton of blog posts to catch up on before I forget everything. One of these days.

G'night internet.

PS -
Also, if you do post something negative, you better be willing to say it before a microphone! I could stand before a judge and say "I don't like medical bills because you never know exactly what you're paying up front and the bill comes much later after the it's put through some arcane time consuming process that it would take a specialist to understand. It should be simplified." (Or at least I hope I could say that without stuttering.) I feel like America today  is already over-litigious and blame-seeking. I'm smart enough to know that I don't have the answer as to how to fix things, but a little more Jesus couldn't hurt! In the meantime, I'll vote for whomever's ideas I like the best. Amen.