{"id":4898,"date":"2025-09-16T11:30:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T15:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4898"},"modified":"2025-09-21T11:30:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T15:30:26","slug":"the-world-of-whatever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/16\/the-world-of-whatever\/","title":{"rendered":"The World of Whatever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

What are the most irritating words or phrases used in casual conversation?

A pair of American institutions of higher education actually keep track of such things.\u00a0

Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, annually publishes a list of words that most people are ready to consign to the conversational trash heap. Last year\u2019s winner (that is, loser) was \u201chack,\u201d followed closely by \u201ciconic,\u201d \u201ccringeworthy,\u201d and \u201cat the end of the day.\u201d

Meanwhile, Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, is famous for its own annual survey of America\u2019s most annoying words.

Your fellow citizens are apparently seriously tired of hearing \u201cit is what it is,\u201d \u201clike,\u201d \u201cwoke,\u201d and \u201cyou know.\u201d But the all-time most annoying word, which came in first for 11 consecutive years beginning in 2009, is \u201cwhatever.\u201d

Ever since the 1995 movie Clueless<\/em> turned \u201cwhatever\u201d into something of a national phenomenon, it seems to have exerted an ever-accelerating power to annoy.

Depending on its context, \u201cwhatever\u201d can be an expression of passivity (\u201cI\u2019m fine with anything\u201d), cynicism (\u201cit doesn\u2019t matter what I think\u201d), disinterest (\u201cDo I look like someone who cares?\u201d) or contempt (\u201cas if I remotely care what you<\/u><\/em> think\u201d).

In many regards, America has become the World of Whatever. The dawn of each new week brings little assurance that we will face fewer controversies and tragedies than the previous seven days.

Many people feel a vague sense of hopelessness about where history is taking us. Maybe all we ever get is a series of disconnected moments.

A character in the movie Say Anything<\/em> explains, \u201cYou get to be thinkin\u2019 about how short life is, and how maybe everything has no meaning, because you wake up and then you\u2019re fryin\u2019 burgers, and you\u2019re like sixty or seventy, and then you check out, you know, and what are you doing, and I just don\u2019t need to be thinkin\u2019 about those kind of things.\u201d

Or as one teenager says to another in the film River\u2019s Edge<\/em>: \u201cI\u2019ve got this philosophy. You do stuff. Then it\u2019s done. Then you die.\u201d

Whatever.<\/em>

The New Testament steers us in a different direction.

\u00a0In a single spectacular verse that features six \u201cwhatevers,\u201d the apostle Paul encourages us to fix our minds on a particular set of data points:

\u201cFinally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true<\/strong>, whatever is noble<\/strong>, whatever is right<\/strong>, whatever is pure<\/strong>, whatever is lovely<\/strong>, whatever is admirable<\/strong> \u2013 if anything is excellent<\/strong> or praiseworthy<\/strong> \u2013 think about such things\u201d (Philippians 4:8).

Every morning we can occupy our minds with whatever makes headlines and inspires insecurity \u2013 inflation, Congressional gridlock, drone attacks in Ukraine, social media rants, and political chaos.

Or we can choose to believe that the cosmos is ruled by a good and gracious God who isn\u2019t fazed by the \u201cbreaking news\u201d interruptions on our TVs or smartphones.

That means the \u201cwhatevers\u201d of Philippians 4:8 really matter.

Forever.<\/em>

And not just whenever, however, or wherever life happens to take us today.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here What are the most irritating words or phrases used in casual conversation? A pair of American institutions of higher education actually keep track of such things.\u00a0 Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, annually publishes a list of words that most people are ready to consign to the conversational… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1002,1003],"class_list":["post-4898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-annoying-words","tag-philippians-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4900,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898\/revisions\/4900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}