why i get tired of people sharing feel-good stories on fb

https://www.facebook.com/FrankSomervilleKTVU/photos/a.394744753922191.92927.162404453822890/1186833578046634/?type=3&theater

Nice story, right? But look at the last three sentences.

"Someday I'm going to do something like that.
I can just feel it.
And it's going to make me so happy."

So many of these stories have crap like, "I saw this homeless man outside a restaurant, and all these people ignored him, and I bought him a meal, and he was so thankful. It made my day." Or "All this woman needed was someone to talk to. I was happy to be able to be there for her." 

Whatever happened to not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing? Some people say that they're not saying this to toot their own horns, they just want to encourage other people to do nice things, but then why not just have a post with a few ideas of nice things to do, encouraging people to be aware of opportunities to do them? Why does it have to be all about "me"?

And then there are times when they post pictures or video. I always want to ask the person if they had permission to do so. Some people don't want people to know they're homeless or going through a hard time or whatever. Must they have their faces plastered on facebook so that you can have visible proof that you are a good person? In this particular case he appears to have had permission, but so often I'm afraid the people don't. 

Yes, we need nice stories. With all the negative out there, we desperately need to hear more positive. But can we please do it in a non-self-congratulatory manner? I get so sick of Americans sometimes.

so right now

before i posted that josh groban post, i had three 'so last night's on here. so now i'm wondering what has been going on in my head lately that's making my dreams so vivid again. i had another vivid bad one the other night, too. last time it was whacked up medication, but nothing has changed with that lately, so i have no idea what my brain is doing. fun, and yet also somehow slightly disconcerting. at least they've been mostly good, though. i won't bother worrying yet.

tweet from Josh Groban

Terrifying ad placement. Am I contagious? I'm shocked and will quarantine immediately.

so last night...

[I so wish I had typed this up right away. It was so detailed and now I basically have nothing.]
I was back in the pioneer days [after having not been in the pioneer days]. There was a very nice, handsome, light-brown haired man whose family kindly took me in for I don't know what reason. I knew this man from town, and of course couldn't help but be interested in him. He would be great marriage material. As it was nearing supper time, however, in walked this big, broad, dark-haired, dark-bearded man, older than the first, carrying a little blonde girl, probably about 2-years-old, but looking tiny because he was so big. He set her down and put some logs on the fire, then looked over at me and smiled. "It's unusual, I know, for the younger brother to be married before the elder, but that's just the way it happened, I guess." And somehow I knew that he was the older brother, this little girl belonged to the first man, and that the first man was widowed. I don't remember what I said, but I do remember thinking that this was not unusual at all, because clearly if this were a movie, the fact that the older brother hadn't yet found Miss Right (and that he smiled at me the way he did) would indicate that it was me and that while the first brother had gotten me to the house, the older brother clearly was the one I was supposed to marry. Unfortunately he caught me staring at him at one point (because I was sizing up the man I clearly was going to marry), so I felt like a huge dork and felt like he was not impressed that I would be immature enough to do such a thing, but whatever. I knew that eventually somehow it would work itself out, because that's how these stories work.