Friday Challenge

Monday was a hard day for me. Generally speaking, people who are paid to lounge in their pajamas for 24 hours a day writing don't get to say things like that because--seriously, what's so bad about lounging and writing? Nothing. Unless you're writing an essay you don't really want to write because you don't really trust yourself to do it they way it ought to be written. Then 24 hour PJ-wearing starts looking pathetic. Around 5 p.m. I decided to leave the house. I walked to the market hoping that my jacket would disguise the fact that I was PJ-clad in public. It was beautiful outside. The first real day of autumn. The air cool and clean, wind blousing all over the place.

Then I went to Kendra's for supper club. It turned out that all of us were having bad days, creativity-wise. But the butternut squash soup filled us with a heady delight and looking at my dear friends with their joys and struggles I could not help thinking that I was the luckiest person. We were gathered together in a warm place for a warm meal. This is what autumn nights are for. I told them that sometimes in church we have something called "Good News Minute" and did they want to try? So we spent the next few minutes talking about every good thing going on in our lives. We hugged congratulations for all the small and mighty feats we had accomplished that day. We ate our hearty soup and laughed and laughed. We learned that studies have proven that if a person strives to have 17 person-to-person interactions in a given day he or she is happier. It can be as simple as a hello, or asking for the time. It can be as drawn out as a midnight conversation that loops mental cul-de-sacs. But the point is to interact with the people around you. To invest in some small way. And this is why I love supper club--it is a conscious and steady way to invest in people for a few short hours. More than that, it is lovely notion, the fact that we come together at the start of each week to eat, to cook, to be friends.

So my challenge for you today is to do exactly this. 17 interactions (phone/email do not count--it has to be face to face). It's a totally manageable number. It's basically one interaction an hour and a good night's sleep. I want to know if it works for you. If you feel happier.