There’s enough people talking about the plusses and minuses of social media, macrodosing dopamine, and feeding the tin skins too much of your personal information that I don’t need to expand more on that. We all have our own thoughts on those issues, and I’m not here to influence yours on those matters alone. But the other day, I was trying to find a picture of something as a joke and searched in my Google Photos for “God’s Gift” and this is what came up.
As much as the robots “think” and the nerds that program them think, there’s finally something resonating with me and AI, for at least one moment in my life. Okay, well two, when it told me to replace a faulty fuel pump relay in our Honda Pilot even after the dealer and a trusted mechanic couldn’t figure it out, but I digress.
God’s gift to me has been my family. And for me, family isn’t as exclusive as some may think. There’s friends, colleagues, and acquaintances that I’ve connected with on mediums such as this, and truly regard as family. Today, however, my focus is on God’s Gifts to me, and I want that focus to always be at the forefront of what I do. While these tools and channels may help make that possible, the stowaways that attempt to influence the algorithms that have embarrassingly become part of our natural lives are ones that I have spent a great deal of time trying to influence this last year. Taking moments to consume content with a specific theme, like aviation, outdoors, and music, have been persuaded to take different directions all in an effort to try to remove my focus from those things that I love, those gifts that God has given me.
To my friends and family who remain active on channels like this, I will be taking this next year to focus my thoughts and my time on those gifts God has given me, hoping that the year will bring me to a new level of awareness of myself while availing me more opportunities to love and serve my family. If there’s ever anything I can do to help you, know that I am but a phone call or a text message away.
May we all find those gifts that God has given us, and may we be even better stewards to those gifts in these days and those to come. With love, Roy.