Hi! Welcome ta Hoot and Holler Saturday! I hope you’re rating no less than a ninety-nine point-nine on the good health-o-meter.
Hey! The Italian sounding fella I left in charge to kick off last Tuesday’s post was really me auditioning to get a job on this website as a substitute blogger. The job pays absolutely nothing. But I decided to audition anyway. All I had to do was impersonate myself talking with a Rocky Balboa accent, while pretending to be me and myself at the same time.
In the end, I really couldn’t tell how the audition went. Nobody ever called to tell me if I got the job or not. But I really did my best. I practiced a couple of times in the mirror. But I don’t think I was all that good. But one thing I do know for sure. I couldn’t tell anybody which I was worse at. -Playing the role of the impersonator or the impersonated! Have you ever had this problem? Oh, so it’s just me huh? I kinda thought so. Blog 101 leaving for paragraph #4. All aboard.
Ever heard of the term user friendly? I’d be willing to bet all of my best socks that you have. Well maybe not the new ones. But let’s take a closer look at the term user friendly, and see if it could mean something entirely different.
User. I think a user is a person who regularly uses up other people’s personal valuables. -Like their car, their tools, their time, their money, their bodies, or even just their physical help. And, wait for it! They give back very little, if anything, in return.
Now lean in a bit closer to your screen, because I’m about to tell you something that’s probably never been discussed on the six o’clock news. Ready? Good. Here it goes. Users are good at using because they are good at being friendly. Gasp! Dun dun dun dunnnnnn! Nooo way! Yes way!!!
Users are very friendly people! They are more than willing to share with you their saddest life stories of financial woes, and flatter you like you were the kindest most unselfish person they have ever met. Until… Dun dun dun dunnnnn! I wish you could hear this sound effect. It’s so cool. It makes you think something is about to happen. Anyway… Where was I? Oh yeah. Dun dun dun dunnnnnn! Cool, right?
For convenience sake, I’ll refer to my little sound effect, from now on, as DDDD. This sound effect should go off in your head the moment you realize that the person you’re talking to is the kind of person that borrows often, and rarely, if ever, pays you back. -Or you should hear DDDD when they keep coming at you with their problems, that can be easily fixed, if you would only just help them out with a one time short time loan. -Or hear DDDD when they borrow something of yours, break it or lose it, and then never can quite manage to replace it. These are just a few situations where you should be able to hear DDDD the loudest and the clearest when talking to a user.
One of the best ways to spot a user is by just listening to them talk. They can find some of the cleverest ways to introduce some of the greatest hard luck stories you have ever heard of, into an unrelated conversation. Stories so believable they will make you feel like getting a Salvation Army donation kettle and ring a charity bell up and down a crowded street.
Now. Let me take my foot off the gas for a moment, and slow it down a bit. Users are people that want to fix their lives by manipulating people into giving them whatever they think they can get to keep their lifestyle going.
The help they want from a person usually doesn’t include much of their own self contribution. And so… We might as well face it everybody. Being a user ain’t nothing like an easy thing to ever want to give up. But there is hope for the user.
Changing from a user into just an average giver can be done! But it will take a few tears, love and prayer, and God providing His power to make it happen. The best example I can give for this kind of transformation is myself.
I use to live my life with the mind set of getting what I wanted, they way I wanted, whether God liked it or not. I didn’t see any reason for me to change back then. But to make a long story quick, God helped me to take a real deep long look at who I really was, and I couldn’t stand to see myself that way anymore. I didn’t like me so much that I begged God to help me to stop being the bad version of me that I was. And you know what? He did! He allowed me to discover everything I needed to do to so that I could change for the better. I discovered who Jesus is, and formed a real relationship with Him.
I’ll bet that someone is thinking that I hate users. No, I don’t. But I am against what they practice.
Even so, the way I see it, users matter just like we all matter. I believe that users should receive all the days of opportunity God gives them, to discover that they are being a care less selfish version of themselves. A version of themselves that doesn’t mind using and hurting people to get what they want or need.
Who knows? One fine day a user might just get tired of all the trouble they cause themselves and others by pretending to be user friendly.
Most sincerely, thanks for reading. God willing, I’ll be posting next Tuesday. May you be blessed. B. Y. E.
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