I posted on Facebook: “I just got one of those mass solicitation emails that shows everyone’s email address. I emailed the store owner back to unsubscribe and let her know many of the addresses are wrong. Make sure she’s got your correct email address if you should be on the list.”  She got angry I called it a solicitation.  I meant no dishonor, I just wanted folks to know to check with her is all, since I got like 20+ back right away.   A friend wrote: “I think Andrea did you a favor; it is important to guard others’ data. You might check in yourself why this felt like an accusation. Peace ….” I don’t know her response.  The phrase I used is what it’s called on THIS side of the industry: mass solicitation = sending out to a bank of addresses you don’t know are current, offering your products and services.

To me as a publisher, a news release is a press release. To me, an article where someone talks all about their business and gives testimonials is not an article, it’s an ad. Each side calls it something different and as you stay in a particular industry you learn that the terms are always changing.   A friend wrote: “Another, perhaps more specific term is UCE: Unsolicited Commercial E-mail. Usually, a press release is just that; information sent to the press for distribution to willing consumers. Spam just blasts to everyone for whom the spammer has an email addy. Willing or unwilling.”

I guard email addresses as sacred. I’ve never shared a mailing list.  Last week for the second time in maybe 3 years, I sent an email out to twenty people that I know and do other business or socialize with, asking if they’d like an ad in an upcoming Horizons Magazine.   I know the ones who are attracted to what I have to offer will find me and they do.  Every month since 1992.

I didn’t mean to upset her by my choice of words.  I do the work of three people here on my own, and I could probably be more mindful of using phrases that some apparently consider offensive.  Or I could simply continue doing what I’ve been doing successfully the last 21 years and not care if someone gets irked when I fail to meet their expectations.

Anytime I feel emotionally triggered by something, that means I’ve got emotional work to do.  It’s the same for all of us.  It usually has to do with forgiveness. There is no shame in that.  We’re all here doing the same thing.  We’re doing it together, so it’s useless to play the Us against Them game.  There is no US that is different from Them.  We are I.

Stop being offended when someone doesn’t use the same words you use.  In every instance, see past the words to the meaning of what they are trying to convey.  Seek content over form every time.  I don’t care for the word psychic.  If I use words like “spiritual advisor,” then someone who doesn’t know that term will keep looking until she sees the word “psychic.”  So I use the words my clients will be looking for: psychic, clairvoyant, since that is their term for what I do.  Life is too short to get irked at who uses a different word for the same thing.

Twenty years down the road you’ll have the aha that “We Are ALL The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For.” All of us, together.  Really.