spam and balls of string

Since I've switched ISPs I've been getting more SPAM. Not much, but more is slipping through the cracks. These just crack me up.

Sent from the "Admissions Office" (never mind that it doesn't say what university):

"Happy Holidays. We are happy to inform you that thanks to a private nomination, you are now eligible to obtain an official University Degree."

Wow! I'm eligible to receive a university degree! LOL. Is this one of those mail-order diplomas? I can't believe people actually would fall for this kind of stupidity. Then again, this is an insane day and age, when people believe things like that dinosaurs roamed the earth with people...Any day the President of the Flat Earth Society is going to run for election or something.

And today, I got a Spam that says I should "Build my family, make kids with Spermamax." What a name! The sad thing is it preys on people who maybe have infertility problems and obviously it's some crank.

Lately I have found myself annoyed very easily at people who are either doing something that annoys me (lol) or who are incompetent or otherwise frustrating. There was this really nice guy at TD Waterhouse who was helping me set up my account on Quicken and the guy was in the department that helps people with this specific task, and he was reading the manual and had never used the program! And of every time I've called (about 7) I've only ever gotten one guy who knew it backwards and forwards (and go figure, the phone got disconnected and I didn't get his name). Why do these companies not train their people to know what the heck they are doing? The nice guy ended up almost making me lose all my files by making me create a new file instead of a new account within the file. Fortunately I figured it out.

Then there are people who I care about or work with or other situations that are just frustrating me to no end. I am one to speak my mind, and sometimes that gets me into trouble. I am trying to impose a 24-hour email rule on myself. I see vast improvements in certain areas of my life, including that of patience, but on the other hand sometimes it truly is a dance, an untangling of string, this journey of spiritual and emotional maturation.

Today I really thought about the analogy of untangling a ball of string. Sometimes you have to go backwards to get the tangle out. If you fight against the backing up direction, and pull straight toward the direction you ultimately want to go, you will end up with a knot, not an untangled ball of string. I think that my impatience with people comes with seeing behaviors that cross my boundaries- judging me, codependence, lack of true communication, denial, narcissism, tunnel vision, seeing only their perspective. I think that my change in response is indeed growth in this area, as when someone does something that maybe hurt my feelings or annoyed me in the past I'd get upset or try to do everything to fix the situation. I still try to live at peace with all people, insofar as it is possible with me, but now I don't depend on people's approval as much, and I don't really care if I say something that offends someone else if that is an inevitable result of my marking my own boundaries and stating my truth and standing up for what I believe to be right, or right for me. If someone's narcissism is darkening my world, it's better for me to remove myself from the situation and distance myself from that person even if it's someone I love.

I am past the point where these kind of things make me upset or sad, where I'd cry or be sad about it. Does that just mean I am jaded or hardened? I don't think so. I know that relationships will have bumps, and you just state your truth and work it out. If the other person can't listen then that conversation is over. If they do, then you can have real dialogue. But maybe I am too quick with my jabby responses when someone responds in a way I don't like. So I need to work on that 24 hour rule... Because it always comes across worse than I feel it in my heart. My annoyance is usually short-lived and easily fixed, but sometimes you do have to distance yourself from negative people. There is always prayer, which I do believe is a powerful way to influence the world. Skeptics may not agree, but prayer is a beautiful, peaceful way to put forth positive loving desires into our own hearts and minds and into the world's collective conscience and before the throne of God.