Not having to prove who I am to my people.
First, the Rant:
I don’t want to sign up for your 30-day free trial, only to find out two years later that I’ve been paying $14.95 a month for something I’ve never had time to read/do/apply. That’s $358.80 that I’ll never see again. For nothing. So NO. No more 30-day free trials. No 7-day, no 14-day, no any day free trials, ever again.
I don’t even want any more full money back guarantee trials. Because the only guarantee you can count on is the guarantee that I won’t remember in time to invoke the money back part.
Plus. I’m sick of having to log in for everything.
I’m sick of having to remember passwords, especially having to remember the password to where I keep all my passwords.
And then! Having successfully jumped through the password hoops — now they want me to receive a text with a confirmation number. Because they still don’t trust me. God help me if I accidentally hit one of the digits wrong. Now, I’m no longer me, so I might as well walk into the ocean.
The final straw (oh, it’s not the final one by far, but it’s usually the step that I hate the most) is that I now have to check a box to prove TO A ROBOT that I am not a robot.
And often, even that doesn’t work. So now I have to click in every square that has a vehicle or part of a vehicle in it. Or a traffic light. Or whatever. Oh for the love of all things, JUST LET ME IN.
And Now, the Gladness:
And then I remembered something.Something so wonderful: my people. My wife. My children, their children, my dog, my friends’ dogs, people I greet on the street who don’t know me, and their dogs don’t either, but they don’t care, and they let me pet them without my having a password to their furry faces!
This morning, as I sat down at breakfast, sharing non sequiturs with my wife (she in her crossword, me in my emails), I felt this wash of sweetness. I realized that we were sitting there free and clear.
I didn’t need to prove to her who I was before being given access to my chair at the table. She didn’t have to log in to open the dialogue. We didn’t have to remember any passwords for hugs, for dancing in the kitchen.
Also. Our 4-year-old puppy, Ruby, aka J. K. Rarfling, shines her heart-melting eyes at us 24/7. I didn’t have to pay $8.99 a month for the priviledge of seeing her little blogposts of devotion. Or her I WILL DEVOUR THE STRANGER AT THE DOOR!!! alerts. Her snuggle sessions with us in the morning before getting up. No proof of identity reqired.
These are things we take for granted.
Think about it the next time you run into a friend somewhere. They just know you, and you know them — think about how cool that is. That there is no PsychBlock app demanding that you (or they) prove to each other who you are before you can talk.
Think about it the next time you roll over in bed to tell your Other a story, or a dream. Nothing stands between you and them. You don’t need to prove a thing.
This is a treasure worth noticing, worth being glad about.
So, tomorrow, let’s turn our attention (just for fun) to all the interactions we get to have with each other, or with the world of nature, or with, you know, the world, that were free. Free financially. Free psychologically. And free of firewall, password protection or security measures.
Blessings for all of us.