We moved to a (sort of) gated community restricted mostly (read the fine print) to people older than 55. It’s a quiet and peaceful community that has probably grown from about 700 to 2,000 in the two years we’ve been here.
The community is blessed with not one, but two, Facebook pages. Let’s consider this equation: old people with too much time on their hands plus Facebook equals a lot of complaining. People worry incessantly about whether the gates are up or down. We border northwest suburban Chicago on one side and fields and woods on the other. We have wildlife. A picture of two eagles appears on the site. People start worrying about the safety of their little dogs. Ditto when a coyote is spotted. They worry about the lawn care service (I love having the lawn care service!).
There are some posts about people helping people. These I appreciate.
I go to Facebook daily to wish people a happy birthday, check out the photos in Pictures of a Beautiful Life, and see what’s happening back home with soccer. In that 10 minutes a day, I can pick up all the complaining (thank you Facebook for guiding me).
I’m not complaining about the complaining. People gotta do what they gotta do. But I am amazed that so many people spend so much time worrying about nonessential things. I couldn’t help myself the other day and responded to someone complaining about waiting five minutes to get through the gate. “Find a good radio station and chill,” I said. I meant WXRT (an original Chicago rock station), but they probably went with talk radio that raised their blood pressure even higher.
Whenever I read Jesus or Paul or James, John, Peter and the rest, I come away with the attitude of focusing on what is important rather than wasting time on meaningless things.
Before taking frustrations out on Facebook, find a good radio station and chill. I’m focusing on nudging people into a more meaningful and fruitful life.
Faith Venture 
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