Putting it Together – Friend a Day

Sometimes I think it is hard to look at a good idea someone else had and accept that it is OK to do that thing too.

Image from Levi Weinhagen

In music, that happens all the time.  You hear a song that you like and you decide you are going to cover it.  As an artist, it is tremendously flattering to have someone cover your music because it means what you wrote something that resonates with someone else.

I’m not talking about music, though. I’m talking about an idea.

My friend Levi Weinhagen started writing a friend a day blog series at the beginning of this year.  The goal was simply to write something nice about a person in his life every day for 100 days.  I was fortunate enough to have been one of those people.

When he started doing it, I thought it was a great idea.  An idea I wished I’d had.

I’m a cynical guy.  I try to write jokes for a living.  There are many things I do well but being sincerely nice to someone is something that I can handle for an entire sentence.  Maybe two.

To write four or five paragraphs of nice about the same person?  Now that’s a challenge.

Talking about a challenge means I’m talking about the benefit I derive from such an exercise.  The benefit to others is so much more than that.  How cool is it to log on to Facebook in the morning and see that someone wrote an entire blog entry just about you?  It makes you feel special and important.

And we all deserve to feel special and important every now and again.

So I thought it was a great idea, but I didn’t want to steal it.  The idea was Levi’s, not mine.

On Friday he announced that he had reached 100 posts and he was retiring the project so he could move on to other projects.

And I got to thinking that when someone goes out of their way to make you feel special and important, the best thank you would be to make others feel special and important.  Kind of paying it forward.  I’m sorry that I just referenced that horrible movie.

So I did what anyone should do when they want to use someone else’s good idea, I asked Levi if it was OK.  Because you shouldn’t borrow a really good idea without permission.

Starting Monday, I’m going to initiate my own friend a day project.  I’ll write about a friend every day for 100 days.  I’ll do it because I know far more than 100 people who deserve to have something nice written about them.

And I’ll do it because writing something nice for 100 days just might help make me a nicer person.

I hope I’m not the only person who decides to pay this project forward (I just referenced that movie again).  I also hope that when I finish in 100 days, someone else decides they want to keep the chain going.  Being nice shouldn’t be a temporary thing.

Thanks for the idea, Levi.  And for letting me borrow it.