Show Up

Getting caught up on the RSS feeds in my Google Reader inspires me. I'm not talking about the numbers going from 43 to 0 but reading all the cool and useful and interesting stuff out there.

I'm freakin' awestruck.

It's not that any single voice is daunting or spell binding -though fantastic all of them are- it is the collection of thought, the sound reason, the motivation spilling off the page that has me sitting agape.

I feel particularly special to be in the same orbit as these folks. I feel like I fit in too. A blogger, with words and thoughts I want to share. I'm struck that the invitation is always standing, always open for people to join in the discussion and take away the pieces that may work.

Which leads me to this theory

There is always a party happening and one can always attend. Just don't show up and be an ass. Even if you think you might not fit in with the crowd, you'd be surprised. The people at the party want to meet you too. Again, if you leave the ass behavior at home, and be genuine and open, you'll have a good time.

Let me share an example of when this happened in my real life. Being super morbidly obese I typically didn't feel comfortable in the gym. There are oodles of people there who are fit and perfect and I was obviously not. But part of the plan to get from where I didn't want to be to where I wanted to be included working out. At a gym.

So I went.

People weren't horrible. I went more often and I wasn't an ass and actually pretty quickly a circle of people chatted me up and shared their stories. Come to find out these perfect people have been some of the strongest most encouraging voices along the way. I may have never found out the Brad Pitt look-a-like really digs Cross-Fit if I didn't ask what the he was doing. (And now I love it too). Barbie may have never gone a run with me but I asked her if she would, now I have an occasional running buddy. We talk about returning to college later in life. I would have never guessed.

Maybe because they see the work I've done or maybe because I speak their language and made an effort to connect or maybe because people are decent and they are looking for people too. I don't know I'm just happy I tried.

There are other parties happening else where too.

So you want to learn to speak publicly. There's Toastmasters. They've got a system. They'll let you play. You want to learn to golf, learn astronomy, or pottery? There are people out there who's passion is just those things and they will share with you and call you friend. What do you have to do? Show up.

Showing up is the hard part.

We tell ourselves that we aren't good enough, smart enough, skilled enough, or heaven forbid, we say we are above these lowly folks. That's the don't be an ass part. If the first group of folks aren't your people and there are many reason why they might not be, there are others who potentially are.

Go find them. They are waiting for you. Well, not really the party isn't going to comense when you walk in the door. It's been rolling along, they are having a good ol' time without you.

Certainly, if you show up they'll share with you what they know.