This is something we've ALL seen and all felt some sort of pressure from. The chain Email, that stupid little thing your aunt or your friends, girlfriends, little sister sent you that ‘requires’ you pass it on.
I hate them, we all do, but I feel the need to address a certain kind of chain mail, or at least one, that I appreciate and understand the need for.
Irena Sendler. If you don’t know the name you need to stop, go to Wikipedia, look her up read the ENTIRE article then come back.
I’m serious. This is no joke. Irena Sendler Wiki Page
You back?
Good.
I received an email, or better said a chain letter, talking about Irena Sendler. I almost didn’t read it because I fucking hate chain letters with a passion. I am nearly to the point of wanting to walk down the hall and scream at a co-worker for having sent me one of those things AT WORK.
But this was different. It talked about who she was, what she’s done (no, I’m not telling you so go read the goddamn wiki-page already!), and why she deserved the win the Nobel prize but didn’t.
Of course it’s a tear jerking story but that’s not what I want to talk about.
It’s the importance of messages like this: the ones that actually mean something instead of the crap guarantying luck, money, happiness if you just click ‘Forward’.
I’ve never had a ‘real’ chain letter, just chain emails. And when you think about it, shouldn’t a letter be something so important you have to tell people, take the time to write it down and really think hard? Hell at one time it was something so important you had to pay for people to know?
Why do emails NOT fall under these rules? Sure it’s easier but don’t we all have something better to say to the multitude of people on our contact lists??
Like yesterday there was a woman on the subway. She was a chatty, middle-aged, Asian who had trouble with English but just wanted to talk. I was a few seats away and super tired, but there was a young man sitting in front of her. She started talking and he answered and talked back.
He wasn’t condescending.
He didn’t get up and move when she started to annoying him.
He played a long and indulged her.
Should he have had to? No. But it was nice.
He’s no Irena Sendler, but he was a kind young man, no more than 25 on a subway at 10:30 at night chatting to a strange little woman when he was obviously tired.
I think these moments are more important to me than hearing about how I can win 1 BILLION dollars by sending this to 52,000 people in the next 5 minutes.
I WANT people to know about this kind young man who sat there while this woman told him he should get a better coat because his mother might worry about him being cold. I like that people can know that I appreciate moments of kindness like this and that there are good people out there who aren’t so concerned with their own lives.
Kindness. Sadness Compassion. Heart. Soul. Tenderness. Hilarity. Important things belong in emails. Important.Like the drawing my aunt made of her late husband that she wanted to share with the family.
Updates from my father on what his yard looks like this spring.
An email from a friend I haven’t heard from in ages telling me the horrors of her ex and why she was so stupid for dating him in the first place.
Yes there’s all that other stuff we get in the mail. Bills, messages for Facebook, twitter follows and other crap. But they don’t mean what real emails/letters should mean.
So try this. It may sound stupid, and I don’t care what you think right now but just try it and let me know how it goes.
Send someone you like, love, enjoy an email telling them about something you like, love/hate, think is important or enjoy. It can be about another person. It could be a rant even. But send a good, heartfelt, honest email today. Or if you’re super artsy and silly like me send a snail-mail letter, hand written on pretty paper.
You will feel better for having shared something real. You will make someone feel just a little bit more special then they did before.
And so help me if you send a goddamn chain letter with one of those ‘send to five people if you want luck’ I’ll find you and take a pound of flesh for every person you demand the email is forwarded to.
No joke.
I'm that nuts.
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