A worldwide shortage of thoughts and prayers may leave us with no choice but to actually do something by as early as January 2019, researchers are warning, after a recent study revealed the popular refrain is now fueling 93% of governmental inaction globally. And we are running out.

Dr. Tim Freely, a leading expert in thinking and praying, and author of the book Act Now Or Forever Wring Your Hands, explains:

“The trouble is that back in the 50’s, when they first started using this phrase as a catch-all for ‘I’m not motivated to actually do something here but feel obligated to open and close my mouth in some fashion or other,’ politicians and community leaders had no idea how much they’d be relying on this platitude by the time the 21st century rolled around. And now we’re just plain running out. Of thoughts. Of prayers. And of patience.”

Freely isn’t alone in sounding the alarm. The Global School for Total Ineffectiveness has said that not only are the current consumption rates of thoughts and prayers at unsustainable levels, but that we are also extremely low on condolences and general declarations of unity in these difficult times.

“It’s pretty simple really,” says Dominic McMercy, president of GSTI. “The ‘Doing Something To Prevent Kids From Getting Shot At School’ lobby is severely underfunded in [The United States of Thoughts and Prayers]. Much as there remains no lobby for ‘The Protection Of Indigenous Persons From Discrimination And Summary Execution’ up there in Canada. Because it’s politically easier to apologize for the collateral damage in these areas than it is to take on the rigours of change.”

McMercy says that studies have repeatedly shown that when a problem is viewed as too difficult or distasteful to bite into, politicians will often just pretend to chew it “through a process referred to as ‘lip service.'”

“Until we run out of patience with that. And then our leaders are left with the bald decision of either doing something, or assuming the horrifyingly honest silence of the uncaring.”

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