An Important Lesson Brought to You By Google

I feel like blogging is a really great exercise for me. It is my therapy. It lets me practice my writing skills. It forces me to really take note of the things that are happening around me. Sometimes, blogging is like going to confession – admitting that I am not perfect leads to cleansing and forgiveness.

With that said, I’m ready to admit how scary of a person I can be. I'm doing it to come clean, but to also warn other people about a possibility you may not have thought of.

It is standard operating procedure (SOP) for me to Google people. This is particularly enlightening when people of interest have a unique name because usually a small number of highly relevant results displays. It makes me feel a bit creepy that I admit to doing this but
A) Lots of people do it (which doesn't make it right) but more importantly
B) I consider it a necessary safety precaution, especially in regard to meeting strangers.
It is definitely a relief when nothing bad comes out of a Google search.

I met a gentleman at work last week and due to his appearance and conversational skills, he immediately became a person of interest. His unusual last name made him a prime candidate for Googling.

I found the pretty standard links – honor roll in college, high school graduation announcement, etc. and then I found an amazing story. When this man was younger, he made headlines by saving the life of a young child. He was widely accepted as a hero and even received national attention. This is the most amazing piece of information I have ever uncovered about anyone I knew personally, using Google.

But I was immediately saddened because I didn’t get to hear the story for the first time from him. It would ruin the future “I wonder what it would be like to save someone’s life” conversation. I can hardly explain how sad I feel about knowing this extraordinary piece of information about this remarkable person.

I was thinking about my Google-regret because the other morning on the way to work, the stupid morning show that I sometimes listen to was taking a survey. They were asking people if 1) given the opportunity, would they view the footage of the sting ray barb killing Steve Irwin? and 2) what is the most disturbing video/picture/real-life scene they’ve ever seen? About half the people answered yes to 1) and people had lots of different suggestions for 2) – 9/11 footage, car accidents, suicides, beheadings in Iraq, etc. People kept saying the same thing about 2) though – knowing how affected they were by seeing what they saw, they’d never have chosen to view the disturbing images in the first place. I felt the same way about finding the amazing story. I actively sought it out, but wish I hadn’t found it.

The accidental lesson from all of this is that it’s good to know the bad things you might find out from Google but I never imagined how bad it would make me feel to find the good things about someone on Google. All you Google-stalkers out there – consider yourself warned.