I wish I talked to people more. I chatter with people all day, but it’s useless noise. I don’t ask hard questions. I don’t want to offend. Instead, I spend my time complaining and gossiping. Which is great if your friends are one-dimensional stock television characters. (Hint: They aren’t!)
Most of the people I know want to change the world. But we think it’s going to come from raging against the machine. It won’t. We think if we yell loud enough, cry often enough, complain ferociously enough that we will one day change everything. But that’s never going to happen.
I have mentor crushes on two Christian bloggers, Jon Acuff and Donald Miller. Some people know that if a specific person popped the question, they would say yes. I know that if either of these two offered to be my mentor and teacher, I would move wherever they told me to and do whatever they told me to. By no means are either of them perfect. I have followed them through several missteps and foot-in-mouths. But there is something really important about both of them. They love people’s stories.
In one of Donald Miller’s books, he talks about a group of five or six guys who didn’t know each other. He thought they should, though. So he invited them all to breakfast and said something like, “Listen, you are all really creative and passionate people. You can be important to each other. We should be friends.” And just like that, friendships were born. They met biweekly for breakfast and a couple of years later, they were serving as groomsmen in each other’s weddings.
I live in my own apartment now. And one of my favorite parts about it is that when I invite people over or plan a lunch or dinner with someone, it means something. I can talk to them. I don’t have to chatter. It’s not enough, though. I want all of my interactions with others to be important, to be meaningful, to be real.
Let’s get coffee. Let’s talk. Even if I don’t know you. Even if you don’t like coffee. Shoot me an e-mail if that sounds like a plan.
Spencer J Smith 