I like “Cancel Culture”. If you listen to some pundits on one end of the spectrum, everything is a victim of cancel culture. Some said Dr. Seuss was a victim of cancel culture although the cancelled books were not a victim of a culture. They ceased to be published due to a decision made by the estate.
I don’t think cancel culture is all bad. In fact I kinda like cancel culture. Thanks to FaceBook there are actually two versions of cancel culture. There is the forever cancelled version and the temporarily cancelled version. Think of the temporarily cancelled button as a button on your treadmill that says PAUSE. The UPS driver comes to the front door so you hit the PAUSE button to get your package. Once back on the treadmill you continue your run.
What if you could hit a button and temporarily PAUSE a friendship, real or faux, before something was said that would end it forever. A PAUSE may give you the option to pick up later on the relationship just like picking up on your workout where you left off. Along the way it reduces your stress level.
There are some relationships, especially FAUX friends on FaceBook, that the nuclear option may be appropriate. Maybe it’s OK to hit the STOP button and end the workout entirely. If someone is contributing more negative than positive to your life, why is it bad to eliminate the negative? If you are nursing an injury, walking or running on the treadmill causes more pain than gain, is it wrong to STOP? Does anyone WIN an argument of FaceBook?
On the Peloton bike there is no STOP OR PAUSE button. Their philosophy is that you should not stop your work-out. The philosophy is that the 30 minutes or so that you are on the bike, nothing should get in your way.
Life works a little different than a bike. There are people in our lives forever and people in our lives for a period of time. I don’t think it is a bad idea to use the buttons we have as long as we are purposeful in our decisions and consider the consequences.
Barry Gibb lost 3 brothers. He has lamented that with each of them, he was not on speaking terms when they died. Here’s an example that perhaps a PAUSE became a STOP when he didn’t mean it to be permanent.
