Like many of you, I, too, often fall for the old gimmick that something is for free.
I wanted to check my credit score, but while the advertisement said it was free, I found out that it cost when I wanted the actual readout. I checked into a free offer to check my computer and to fix any problems existing there, but after checking my computer, I found out that it cost something to fix the 1,500 problems (so they say) that needed fixing.
There is an old saying among police officers: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." That's good advice and would help a lot of people avoid the many scams present today that are designed just to get your money.
However, I was thinking about free stuff the other day, and realized that there actually may be some free things around.
For instance, the giving and receiving of advice appears to be free. It does have some hang-ups though. Most of the people I know are more willing to give out advice than they are to receive it. And, I have to wonder about how much of the advice is actually any good. Or, to put it another way, does the advice help -- e.g. build up -- or does it just tear someone down?
I don't know who bankrolled the many political advertisements on television during the last election, but he or she must be rich. It would be interesting to compile a record of how many of those advertisements were positive and how many were negative.
I suspect that more than 90 percent of them were negative. So, with that much negativity going on, what's a person to believe? Surely, we don't want to believe that everything connected with our government is negative. There has to be some things that are good. After all, I still receive my Social Security check each month.
On the way to church the other day, we stopped at Starbuck's for a cup of coffee for my wife, but when we went to pay for it we discovered that the person ahead of us had paid for it forward. Were we ever surprised! So, being good people, we just paid for the person behind us. If everyone "paid it forward" that Sunday, I'm sure there must have been a lot of pleased people drinking Starbuck's coffee. Wow, free coffee!
It seems to me that there are a number of free things a person might do these days to help uplift people's lives.
One of them is to use our "words" wisely. In the Bible (Proverbs 25:11 NIV), it says, "A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." It probably refers back to an old custom when the king would invite special guests to dinner and then offer them one of the "apples of gold" from a silver basket as a gift when they left.
Remember the old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words never will." Well, that saying is incorrect. Words make or break people all the time.
Why not make it a practice to attempt to say something positive and helpful to people around you, instead of always finding fault?
People are always blaming police officers for something or the other, saying that they are not doing their jobs. Well, like the old Indian saying that a person really doesn't understand someone else until he or she has walked awhile in their moccasins, you should try walking in the shoes of a police officer. It's not that easy.
Why not find a way to build up your police officers? Thank you, officer, for noticing my pet dog in that hot car and doing something about it. Thank you, officer, for making sure I was safe when they pulled my car out of the ditch where I had wrecked it. Thank you, officer, for directing me to my destination and pointing out the right road to take.
You know, I always like it when I see our officers are in nice, neat uniforms and driving clean cars. Thank you, officers, for taking control of a volatile situation and keeping me safe. Thank you, officers, for patrolling our streets and helping us when storms are chasing everyone else away. Thank you, officers, for being there whenever I call 911.
Whether it's a police officer or someone else, try to find something good to say to those around you. You'll feel better and so will they.
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Box is the chaplain for the Bella Vista Police and Fire departments. The opinions expressed in this column don't necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.
Editorial on 12/17/2014