What About It?

An interesting project showed up in my Twitter stream yesterday:  16 Weeks of Love, a once a week (for 16 weeks) reflection and activity thing motivated by "a deep desire to see love present everywhere for everyone."

Oh, the effort it takes not to say something cynical!!!

The first assignment is to invite 5 people to do it with you and reflect on how you feel about doing that inviting.

Turns out I feel freaked out enough about inviting people to do anything that I'm not really going to invite anyone.  I'm just going to post here about it and say, "Hey, you know.  This thing looks kind of interesting.  I don't know this person at all and I might not end up liking what he says at all.  He could be a charlatan or an idiot or something else unlikeable that I would feel really dumb for recommending, so I'm not really recommending it, just saying hey, you know.  This thing might be interesting.  Maybe."

The author tweeted yesterday that the thing he kept telling himself was the reason not to invite someone was "they're too busy", which reminded me of a recent NYT article about how obsessed we all are with being busy* (even if we don't think we should be obsessed with being busy.  I don't think we should all be so busy, I think "busy" is pretty dumb, actually, but what do I say whenever anyone asks how we are?  "Oh, you know, really busy."  And then I berate myself silently for days.)

But really what stops me from inviting anyone is nothing to do with them and everything to do with me.  Fear of rejection.  And fear of being judged silly.  Having eyes rolled at me.

But, dang, I've done some brave things in my life and I can only assume life will ask me to do many more braver things before my time is up, so why is a little eye-rolling so frightening?

And why is it that I am so miserable when I recommend something and then alter my opinion later?  It stops me from recommending things.  It's a major reason I don't have a list of recommended blogs in my sidebar.  It's a little silly.  More than a little.

Anyway, however 16 Weeks of Love turns out (and, really, what exactly is the bad that could come out of any number of people focusing regularly on increasing positive emotion in themselves and those around them???), it might be a good spur to get back into the confessional navel-gazing style of blogging.  ;)  What do you think?

 

*Thank you, dear friend and reader, for the recommendation of the busy article.

Comments

[Elizabeth McGonagle]

We should all do something brave and different that we've never tried. Who cares if someone rolls their eyes.

And we should all "put a little love in our hearts". The Dali Lama says those who meditate on love and compassion for others are the happiest themselves. Same with loving actions. Not that we should do it for personal gain. But don't think I want to add twitter to my on line opportunities. Enough is enough.

[Kelly]

Was this an invite? If so, I'm in. Unless it involves Twitter cause I'm not on Twitter. But I'll read Twitter.

[Gina]

I am not brave enough to take on this challenge, but I look forward to your insights! love on!