Angela Dove: Award-Winning Writer

How to better your soul with the click of a mouse (because you read about it on a billboard).

Billboards are the white noise of interstate travel. I barely notice them, unless I’m hungry or the gauge on the car informs me that a gas station (or roadside assistance) is in my immediate future. I am not alone in ignoring these signs, which is why their displays have become increasingly colorful/sparkly/humorous/oversexed. But on this day, I was traveling unknown road and gazing out at the scenery—rolling hills, old barns, tacky advertisements. And that’s probably the only reason I noticed this particular billboard touting something called values.com. 

Please note: Under no circumstances am I supporting this particular website. To the contrary, I find the very idea morbidly fascinating:  there is a website offering beliefs. It is a commercial (for profit) site, as witnessed by the fact that it ends in the prefix “.com,” meaning commercial, instead of “.org,” as many nonprofit organizations use.  And its marketing demographic consists of bored motorists.

I left the billboard behind but continued to ponder the ideology behind it. “Get your values with the click of a mouse. Forget life experience, inspired literature, mission trips—heck, forget about interpersonal relationships all together. Now you can form your entire set of values with a click of the mouse.”  What a relief for all those people who feel they must lead by example. Now they can leave their rat-infested third-world missions and proceed directly to the nearest trendy watering hole of their choice, grab a frosty mug of whatever’s on tap, and rest secure in the knowledge that values.com is burning the midnight oil.

When I arrived home, I decided to take a look at the website for the sake of journalistic research. After all, maybe I had this all wrong. Maybe “values.com” was really about comparison shopping. “Find the best value on Purina Dog Chow for Small Breeds!” Now that really would be helpful. In fact, this website probably was more of a coupon clearing house, right?

Wrong.

I logged onto the site and the title popped up: “Values.com--The foundation FOR a better life.” The FOR is underlined, so people won’t get it confused with the foundation AGAINST a better life.

Below this is a list of values to choose from: courage, inspiration, strength. I guess you can click on a determined number of selections and have them downloaded directly into your brain—or at least the MP3 player of your choosing. One selection listed is “Teamwork,” which I find a little ironic since it’s offered via computer. My children, at 4 and 7, are still learning the finer points of working together as a team; obviously their teachers are unaware that they can bypass this whole cumbersome process with a PC and adapter cable.

Don’t see the value you’re looking for? Not a problem. There’s a space on the homepage where you can “suggest a value.” I thought about typing “the ability to make a crepes,” because crepes are tricky little devils, but some people make them effortlessly and totally take that for granted.  (You know who you are.) However, upon reflection that suggestion didn’t seem in keeping with the rest of the menu. So instead I typed in “learning by experience.” I’m not expecting that idea to take wings with the computer programmers holed up in the values lab.

Maybe values.com does good in the world. Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But I am very intrigued to see if their website is the harbinger of similar sites to come. Some days I could use a broader perspective, or a higher level of concentration, or a minor attitude adjustment. I’ll google those in a few months to see if they’re available through my browser.