Connections…
I love the internet. I love the way I can interact with people I know and don’t know and may never know personally and grow from those interactions. Its amazing how one idle comment or conversation on Facebook or Twitter or some other social network can turn in to opportunities. What has my being an internet junkie and an idle commentator turned into?
- I have a former instructor who sent me a note the other day after I gave him a tip on a business opportunity. He asked if I’d be interested in talking to his college level class on my teaching experience. I’d love to. I can go on and on forever about the joys of scraping the crud off young minds so that they can breathe and grow and experience the world. I’m all in.
- I had a very fruitful conversation with someone I’ve chatted with in the past and am now connected to on Facebook. Turns out we see the community in the same light and have our own ways of battling for elbow room out there. We’ll be working together to make some space in the universe so change can become a reality for some.
- A couple of years ago, almost as a whim, I taught some female students how to make jewelry. One of them is now a sophomore in high school. She has started a small jewelry business and is all the rage at school and in the community. I’m not done with her yet though. I’m going to take her global as soon as we both can find 5 minutes after school to make it happen.
- A friend of mine was on the fence about a job opportunity that would have put her in the center of the action at the Superbowl. I talked her off the fence, she went, she saw, she conquered! She now has connections of her own that will help her grow.
- I have been approached to set up a display of my jewelry to be sold in a hair salon. Yeah, I’m all over that. This is how we do it!!
- I mentioned to a teacher I work with in a school club that I was going to take a few web design classes and wanted to do something with education outside of the classroom. That was last Saturday. I have more than 20 emails from him with ideas, contacts, resources, etc. on how to make change in education outside the classroom. I’m all over it.
And the list goes on and on…
I promised myself at the beginning of the year that I would work on making cultural self loathing something 
that doesn’t exist in my life and in the lives of those with whom I interact. I think its working. Its not something that I expected to happen overnight, but I am discovering that comments I make, stands I take, and coals I rake, are building a smothering flame of indifference about the world into a raging fire of enthusiasm for life around me. This… is a good thing.
What are you doing to make change, to heat up the cold heart of our society’s nearly dead body? What sorts of things are happening to you, around you, and within you to cause people to take notice and want to be a part of YOUR small, but force filled parade through life? Get the party started… we’ve got connections to make, lives to change, and legacies to create!
