“You don't need to wait for that second chance, because every second is a chance to change your life for the better.” ― Jeanette Coron

It's Tuesday, February 23, 2016, and I say hello to one and all. It's your friendly aggregator and I am up and running and doing my thing. Maybe I should explain. That name has to do with someone who aggregates or collects information and then shares selected pieces with others. Social media is pretty much dominated by the younger generation. They know all the abbreviations. Twitter is in that domain as well. I follow a whole bunch of news feeds on Twitter and that helps keep me up to date literally up to the second on the latest this, that, and the other. I occasionally spot a category or hashtag that catches my eye. I saw this one the other day: #IfIHadAnotherChance. Those who posted had some very interesting thoughts. ~ I would never have let her leave. ~ I wouldn't have put so much faith in all those "happily ever after" stories of my childhood. ~ I would have taken that bullet for my brother. ~ I'd tell my mom I love her one more time. ~ I wouldn't change anything. It's called life. Deal with it. ~ I would understand you don't know what you have until it is gone. ~ I would say I love you to my grandma one last time. ~ I'd change my pride, my ego, my needs, my selfish ways. Although it hurts, I'll be the first to say I was wrong. ~ I would have done everything I could to have kept you. ~ I would go back to July and change that mistake and life would be so different now. ~ I would say a resounding YES to Jesus again! ~ I would try to show you I wanted the relationship as much as you did. ~ I would have kicked you in the teeth the first time I met you. ~ Truth is, I think we all have regrets. There were many other thoughts shared on that forum and I could tell that many of those posting were bitter, hurt, sad, lonely, and living in painful remorse. I think the poster who said they would say yes to Jesus has the answer for all of those others searching for relief. That one about Jesus was the only one out of the hundreds I scanned that mentioned the spiritual need we all have. I thought these were very interesting. I wonder what I would have posted. What about you?

One of my brethren Santa's posted a little graphic the other day that I thought was pretty good. It said a man was observed sitting in Starbucks. "This man had no smartphone, laptop, or tablet. He was just sitting there drinking his coffee. Like a psychopath." I can identify some with that observation. When I am out and about and I use my flip phone, folks look at me like I must be some type of wilderness freak. They give me the glare: Really? Have you checked a calendar lately? It is 2016 in case you missed it. Guess what? That doesn't bother me at all. I could be a really good text person but I do 99.9% of my communication via a conversation. Do you remember that? It's two people talking. Here is something I have observed. Just me. I'm not Al Gore and I didn't invent the internet but I can still observe and give my thoughts. A whole lot of people have gotten out of the habit of talking to others. They actually go out of their way to not have a live voice to voice conversation with others. I saw a fellow one day and he was becoming increasingly frustrated by the texting forth and back with someone in his family. I could almost see steam rising off of his head. I simply asked why didn't he call and talk to them directly so they could work out whatever problems needed to be addressed. He gave me this look of dismay, like, you must be kidding. Right? I don't know where this is all headed and I might end up joining the lemmings brigade like everyone else but it is worrisome to me and now you know. What? You didn't ask? I'm always answering questions no one asked. You should know that by now.

I am aware of the benefits of text messaging. Being able to get the word out to a large distributed audience is a good thing. My flip phone is able to receive some of those messages. My point was a more generalized observation about the vanishing face to face or voice to voice interaction. Based on what I read nearly every day we are headed towards a future, if the Lord doesn't bring it all to an end, where robots will be doing many of the jobs that are currently done by people. We are very much aware of manufacturing processes that are managed by computers. But, there typically are real live people who interact with and oversee those operations. Guess what? They are close to having real robots to do that type of interaction. If it's true we have nearly 100 million folks who are either underemployed or out of the workforce because they cannot find work, well, bringing on a bunch of robots to replace potential workers, that doesn't sound so great to me. Think about it. The future will be for mostly coders of programs that operate everything in the world. I'm not sure how all of that will play out. Maybe those robots will need to have their oil changed now and then. Again, just some throw down observations for a Tuesday. Bottom line, put your faith and trust in God. He will make a way for His own. Amen. .....More later.