resolutions

So, I've been blogging a lot of religiousy stuff on my other blog. Which is here if you don't already know qufaith.blogspot.com So I was trying to offset that by blogging something not religiousy here. Literally, nothing is currently interesting me enough to type about right now, so I'm going to start with something that happened here in the parish center tonight. I began a new group that is a copy of a group that already meets. The point of it is for people to read the gospel for the upcoming Sunday and reflect and discuss how it speaks to them. That was just to set the stage. Moving on,

It got me thinking about people who get involved versus those that don't. You have that chosen few who I like to call the seekers. They look for stuff to throw themselves into. They love volunteering, attending events, making new friends. Then there are those that wouldn't know a good time if it hit them in the face. They don't seem to enjoy anything. Let's imagine it's a bell curve.

I particularly like this bell curve, because 1. I didn't have to make. I stole it from Google. and 2. I like the point it makes. Early adopters, "joiners", are a rare thing, and are somewhat oddball. Same thing for the people that never do anything. Now here's the point. The middle, the fat part of the bell curve, probably roughly 80%, are the "social norm". "Why is that?" you might be saying right now. Here's what I think. We like doing stuff that has proven to be stuff worth doing. The majority of us watch football and not rugby, or eat burgers more frequently than pad thai. The majority of people do stuff because they've been introduced to it. How many things do we participate in that we discovered on our own? Probably not a lot, unless you're that person in the upper 10%.

So that's my New Years resolution. I'm going to make a better effort of inviting people to do stuff I like to do. I like it, so it can't be all bad. I am becoming more and more convinced that people do stuff because someone else invited them to it. This is different than telling someone they should do something. This is getting personal and actually asking someone to do something new for them with you. Be part of their first experience. Renew my own commitment to something by watching someone else see it with fresh eyes. This might be a good time to block my cell phone or unfriend me on Facebook if you're part of the lower 10%. On the other hand, please invite me to try something new. Maybe I'll like it.