The ability to think for yourself...

The ability to THINK for yourself is becoming so very rare. I am a member of several forums for mom's and professional forums for photography. I have the luxury with my "jobs" to be able to spend time in those forums and I am pretty active in most of them.

I really do love helping, sharing and teaching and in turn learning new things about new people. I've made friends all over the world by being a part of those forums. Bonus I get to talk with adults who do not live in my house or invade my life on a regular basis.

The thing that boggles my mind in every forum I've ever been in-regardless of what it's for-is the inability to THINK and figure anything out for oneself. I really want to say something like "google is your friend."

If you have the ability to use the internet to find this forum, make a profile and be active in it I'd venture to guess you have some rudimentary internet skills. Pretty sure you're using a browser and no matter which one I use there is a search bar up there on the right hand corner. You can type anything in that little search bar and VIOLA! Instant results. AND! WOW! You can find things right next door! Hey! If you've forgotten your address? That little search bar will help you!

I ran across a question in a mom forum today from a young mother had gotten into super couponing Because of it they had stockpiled supplies. She wanted to find a way to use her super coupon abilities to help a charity. Her question was how to do that. Really. Let me break that down into elementary terms: she asked "how do I donate new supplies to charities?"

Hmmmmmmm....

This seems pretty straight forward to me. I just don't get it. You give the stuff to the charity.  Why do you need to ask how to donate stuff to a charity? You drive over there with your car loaded up with supplies and donate it. Easy peasy. Pretty common sense to me? Right?

Or am I really that cynical that I missed the point here? OK...

Maybe she didn't know what charities to donate to or how to find them. Do you really think that a forum of mom's world wide is going to know what is right around the corner from you for you to donate to? The odds of any of the mom's being in that forum living anywhere near you? Probably slim. So, my common sense kicks in... GOOGLE IT! I literally told her to tell her to type her town or the nearest city/town into the search bar with food bank, charity, food pantry and see what it turns up. OR contact a church and see what they have.

I would think that if the other mom THOUGHT about what she wanted to do she could figure out a way to find a charity to give things to.  But, evidently that's a luxury that people just can't do for themselves anymore. If I had asked my mother a question like that she'd look at me like did you REALLY just catch stupid?

Our schools are shoving so much information into our kids today, but evidently the ability to THINK is not a requirement. Don't get me wrong. I don't expect any extreme amount of intelligence here. I just expect people to have some basic reasoning and processing skills. How do these people survive in the world? No wonder our world is going to hell in a hand basket! No one has to use the brain God gave them.

AND!!! You know what? I answered that question for her. Yep. She didn't have to tax her brain one iota because there were people there who answered the question. Better yet were the SEVERAL or so answers that said "I don't know, here's a bump for you!" and "I'm not sure."

My prayer for the day: Please, Lord allow me to give my children the ability to think for themselves. Thank you for making me feel as if I have some intelligence left in me after all. Please continue to grant me the basic wisdom to navigate the world today. Amen.