Can you spare 5 minutes a week?..I need volunteers...

  With the explosion of social media I can't help but notice the law of unintended consequences has reared its ugly head once again. I have stumbled on Tumbler, shown my ass on Facebook, instantly became addicted to Instagram, Flicked, Pinned and Tweeted away more than one afternoon and I suspect I am not alone. We have become so good at connecting in 140 characters or less that we have lost the ability to connect in the real world. I was waiting in a dentist office and there were 4 other people, all engrossed on their smart phones just like me. I am old enough to remember when I would have spoken to all of them.
  What is the cost of all our new found connectivity? I suggest that the real cost is the loss of relationships. Have you ever met anyone who you became friends with while waiting in line? I know I have. Or just heard an interesting story between other people talking? Me too, but it hasn't been lately. If it wasn't for Bluetooth I'm not sure people would even speak in public anymore. So instead of becoming a more friendly, integrated society we are becoming more isolated, unless you count a smart phone or laptop. We are becoming more concerned with what our followers or "friends" on Facebook are doing than we are with the people we actually interact with every day. May be that's why the country seems so easily divided these days.
  Because of these observations I decided I was going to do something to change it. Once a week I am going to take 5 or 10 minutes and connect with someone I don't know but see on occasion. It might be a grocery check out person, dry cleaner or even a pizza delivery guy. Just 5 minutes to find out where they are from, do they have a family, like their job, whatever. People love to talk about themselves so it won't be very hard. (I have a blog based on that fact) Some of the people I talk to might end up being one hour conversations. Who knows, I might even find a friend or two while I'm at it. At the very least, I'm going to try a put a smile on someones face. I'm sure there will be a few that will leave me shaking my head but that is okay too.
  My personal goal is two people a week so a year from now I can say I've got 100 new friends. I love the thought of telling people, "Ask for John at Starbucks or Tom at Home Depot, they are good guys" for no other reason than it makes people feel good. There is no monetary gain in this project of mine. It's not a human chain letter where if you don't do it bad luck will swarm over you. It's nothing more than a chance to try and connect more people and hopefully find out all of us have more in common than we think. Even if you just try it for a couple of weeks all you have spent is 10 minutes of not watching cat videos on You Tube anyway.
  I am starting this today but it would be much more fun and have a greater impact if people would join me in it. If you are the cynical and jaded type (I am) think of all the sarcasm laced stories you will have if everybody you meet is a complete tool. Comedy gold, but I doubt that will be the case. If you want to try this with me just comment, like or share the blog post. Or re-tweet it. This going to be fun.

Till next.....