AN ARRANGEMENT OF CHAIRS - Sitting In On Social Networking

Katie Evans from Greenville, NC blogged about musical chairs this morning. Thanks, Katie. It got me remembering the childhood game and the overwhelming anxiety that charged my body and the cinch of a foreboding knot in my stomach...isolation and exclusion approaching...no place for me to exist in the world that is neatly set out where everyone else is securely positioned...wishing I could fly, far away, or simply evaporate into thin air. I really did not like that game at all. Are there any readers out there that grew up and actually liked that game? I thought it was purely punishment, just for being a kid.

Of course, like many of us, I carried a lot of these awful experiences into adulthood, and, thankfully, have succeeded in somewhat sorting them out over the years...sifting through all the debris to find the single treasures of those moments, the single pearl of goodness that was knotted into the strand of my childhood journey that, as a kid, we can experience as a choking of the spirit.

Today, my "polished" view of this game, as it played out in my life, is that it provided me the opportunity to develop work and relationship survival skills.

The REALITY is, sometimes we do lose out, whether it be a hurricane, a job promotion, a date with your biggest crush (will George C. ever call me?), your favorite restaurant being fully booked, even though it's your birthday... the overnight line at the Apple store is cut off after the person in front of you---SOLD OUT! I guess there really are so many times we are playing a musical chairs of sorts. The willingness to let go can be a gift of wisdom. Everyone can't have everything. (Where would you even put it all?)

SO here is a 2-step ACTION PLAN for the chair arrangements in your life that leave you standing: #1 - STAY In the game. The round ends, but the game doesn't. We all can lose an established place, but you can keep your winning attitude. We all stumble and fall, but please, DON'T STAY DOWN & OUT. Don't stop listening to the music in your heart.

#2 - DO SOCIAL NETWORKING. We are LIVING THE PHENOMENON..the manifesto of ‘space expansion' (one of the final concepts that Albert Einstein wrote about in his journal---if he were here today, I'm sure he would have blogged about it.) NO ONE is left standing or without a place. It's music to my ears, so pull up a chair.

Active Rain Community Builder, BRAD ANDERSOHN, has helped a lot of us learn about A LOT, including the what's what and who's who of these social networking sites, and suggests these as some of the best places to start:

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google Talk. WordPress, Typepad, LinkedIN, Google, Instant Messenger, Skype and Ebay. These applications are all FREE. Download and access them from anyplace that provides Internet service.

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