Dating S.O.S

By now, science has proven that massaging, touching and hugging is actually very good for your health. There are a few people who apparently strongly believe in this concept, and started a “free hug campaign”. The video is posted below:

The first free hug campaign was in Aberdeen. Whoever claims that “the youth today” doesn’t care the way previous generations did may just have to eat their worlds. The free hug movement was started by teenagers who believe there is too much disconnectivity between people, and a lack of human contact.

This is likely very true. After all, unspoken rules govern our social and professional lives. You’re probably not likely to hug a co-worker today, much less your boss. Perhaps that’s ok: physical contact in the workplace opens the door to all sorts of misunderstandings, but there is no need to stay business-like in our private lives too, is there?

The fact that we need to make hugging into a campaign to draw attention to the state of our modern lives is a sad eye-opener.

The saddest thing is that we are forcing our kids to estrange themselves from hugging from a very young age: a few years ago stories started popping up about schools that ban hugging. What has the world come to? One reason is cited to be that kids have to “learn proper manners”. Excuse me, but these kids were not having sex in the hallways, they were giving each other a HUG. Really…what’s wrong with a hug? How can we expect these kids, who are banned from all physical contact, to grow up and become loving and affectionate adults? Some people have to learn that by removing everything that is human from schools, such as physical contact or even cleaning out all traces of religion, will not create a better environment. It will create a stale, sterile and empty place without any warmth, stimulation or discussion.

If even hugging is offensive, then I can also see why there are people campaigning to remove all mentions of the word “God” from all textbooks, TV and other media sources. Are they so afraid that they need these concepts not to exist? What is their view for our world then, a world without hugging that will spiral into something resembling the most extreme science-fiction societies?

Hugging should be allowed and embraced everywhere. It’s fun, and it’s good for you. Don’t just hug in hard or good times, hug someone today… just because!