Are these messages of ‘hope and kindness’ or just WEIRD?

In this very troubling time we live in and with it being the holiday season, we could all use a little pick-me-up.

While visiting a coffee chain shop in a NJ suburb, my daughter and I noticed these little notes of inspiration on the wall below the counter. Normally sentimental stuff is right up my lane. But amid the tables full of people not talking to each other but fixed on their screens and people silently picking up their mobile orders, I thought to myself, "how f#@%ing weird!" I felt like yanking the earbuds out of every busy little office space freeloader in the joint and asking each one if they needed a hug.

In this impersonal, screen-addicted, anonymous society we've stooped to inspirational Post-It notes on the wall of a coffee shop?! Are people so not accustomed to talking to other people or so sad and lonely inside, that this is the answer? I know I was supposed to be inspired or uplifted by this but instead I was angry, sad and scared. Scared, because I thought, if Russia or China or North Korea were to invade us, these are the people that would be called upon to serve us in a war. Why don't we just put up a big Post-It note on the wall that separates South and North Korea telling Kim Jun Un "keep living your best life."

I don't want to be a Grinch and I would gladly buy any of these people a coffee or give them a hug or even sit with them at one of the many uncomfortable tables there and actually have a conversation with them. That's if they actually could. You probably couldn't see mine in the lower left corner. It read, "STOP THIS ...THIS IS WEIRD!"

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