Feel down? Vaguely depressed? Frustrated? Have you lost your self-confidence? Struggling to find your voice? Paranoid? Angry for no reason? Convinced everything is terrible and will never get better? You may be experiencing an acute case of virtual baggage caused by repeated exposure to keyboard bullies, the tone police (the online equivalent of the fashion police), conspiracy theorists and crazy political or religious extremists.
When you have face to face disagreements, get cut off in traffic, called names, or are the witness or subject of someone’s tantrum (so many adult tantrums these days, and so many of them caught on video), it’s easy to understand why you feel hurt or angry or offended, and that understanding makes it a little easier to let those feelings go and move along. Virtual baggage adds up over time, until you can’t even tell why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling.
There’s good news: virtual baggage is treatable, and the treatment is relatively painless. It involves recognizing the source of the problem and then releasing all those virtual words and actions and comments and knee-jerk reactions.
Forgive them, for they know not what they do. Or they just know not. Regardless, forgiving isn’t about them and their bad behavior, it’s about you being free from their negative baggage — virtual or otherwise. In the words of Elsa (also virtual), “Let it go, let it go.”
In other news… happy 136th birthday to the Herald Times. The very first edition of the Meeker Herald (later to become the Rio Blanco Herald Times) was published on Aug. 15, 1885, by Mr. James Lyttle.
We will endeavor to continue Mr. Lyttle’s original mission statement: “The Herald will not be run in the interest of the ‘rascals’ out or the ‘rascals’ in. We will confine ourselves to the local interests of Meeker and the White River valley, and we will at all times, to the best of our ability, promote and protect the same. The Herald will not be the medium through which private parties can air their personal grievances. We are not here exclusively for the benefit of our health, although we will have to acknowledge that the climate is delightful and the balmy and exhilarating air all that could be desired. The Herald will be conducted as a business enterprise.”
Thank you, Mr. Lyttle.
By Niki Turner | [email protected]
