Just received this and was moved so decided to share with you all

And the blackmail effect is quite clear from your feeling you have to reply to it because otherwise the person will feel upset or hurt. That's called emotional blackmail.

I have a friend - a dear friend - who keeps sending me those inspirational pass-it-on emails, ever since I showed her how to forward messages (wish I hadn't). I am afraid I do not pass them on, they shrivel and die in my deleted file. If it asks me to send it back, I just don't, and I am very very selective about what else I forward and who to.

If you read the header to the a message that has been forwarded to you, you can see the email addresses of every recipient it has been through to reach you, and all the other people that they have forwarded it to - sometimes hundreds of contact addresses for complete strangers.

Mine would be added to the list if whoever I sent it to continued the chain. I don't want that.

(I did attempt to show my friend how to delete the list of everyone the message had been through, but was not successful)

The one in the OP isn't even inspirational. (Yes, I know you were probably being polite using that word, elegran).

Just re-read the OP and have concluded it is psychobabbling bullshit anyway. I daresay those things are true on occasion but they are hardly universal truths.

I've had to 'hide' a couple of people on Facebook otherwise my news feed would be chock a block with so called inspirational photos and 'forward this if you are brave/caring/enlightened enough' drivel.

I never did understand the chain letter thing either, every single one I ever received ended with me.

We could compose one and start it on its travels and see how long it is before it comes round again. I am sure most of them are just that - experiments in using social media. Think of a plausible lie to make into a rumour - "Bottled spring water found to contain dangerous amounts of the chemical hydrogen hydroxide, close contact with which has caused many suffocation fatalities" - and see how many people will forward it.

What about this:

Share a smile - it costs nothing

Phone a friend - it doesn't cost much

Sing a song - it will lift your heart

Contemplate a flower - it will calm your spirit

Knock on a lonely neighbour's door - they can only say 'no'

Write a letter to a loved one, after all a stamp won't break the bank

And then, you know, you'll feel you have done some good in the world today.
Pass this on, spread the love.

Lovely! Near enough to the truth to attract lots of Ahhhh How True but with the hidden message clear enough!

Preachy.

Most of the people I know do this sort of thing without being told to do them.

It's the fact of the 'Aaah!' attraction that makes them so yuck to me.

The actions may be lovely but talking about them and entreating others to do them (the silent implication being that one does them oneself – boast, boast) is not.

MiceElf Kittylester has a nice one on a new thread "Do you have a psychic budgie?" but I hesitate to congratulate her in case it is a serious question.

Bags. I DID jest!

elegran,

Oops.

I don't know you that well to be able to judge from print, mice. But I'm glad you were jesting.

Bags I though I had been acerbic enough in the past, I must try harder.

Thought

Moved - your riposte tells me everything I need to know about the cheapness of this type of message - you have absolutely no idea what many of us have suffered and whether or not this means we can understand the sentiments expressed in this psychobabble .

And I'm getting back to RL now where I'm telling people I love them, that I'm sorry and that I need their help

Moved I'm puzzled that you shoud think only certain oeople must have suffered in order to appeciate the statements in your OP. I don't think we should compete to declare what we might have gone through in order to counter your assertion. Could you just accept that some people really have had troublesome experiences that have caused suffering, but they aren't over-sentimenal and will be moved in a different way to you?

bluebell my point exactly! We don't know what others have suffered so imo it is better to be kind to/about them than to be nasty/cutting.

Elegran could you show your friend how to bcc to everyone? I don't think it is acceptable to forward on other people's email addresses and never do it. None of my friends do either.

Yes when Of course I can but I can't understand why, if someone knows how that person feels, they cannot show any empathy. I have no trouble showing empathy to people who express things in a different way to me. In fact I did so recently to someone who has been very unpleasant to me but just got a nasty response. It doesn't matter how many times that happens to me I shall still show understanding if I think it is appropriate.

A lot of us have probably gone through more than you can imaging, moved, but we would prefer not to have our emotions reduced to the level of cheap cliché-ridden claptrap.

anno I am not suggesting that you should. I am simply suggesting that empathy for the person who wrote it would be kinder.

I would hope that everyone can be empathic and not be reduced to nastiness. It's tempting, I know, to come out with words we are not usually known for using, but I hope we are all more mature than that. I'll say no more on here now. Peace!

I dislike it when people say they are empathic. I think that really empathic people never mention it but just are.

And that it's easy for other people to tell.