{"id":1962,"date":"2019-03-15T03:50:32","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T07:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=1962"},"modified":"2019-04-05T02:10:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T06:10:18","slug":"week-335-grab-a-coffee-or-a-movie-or-tea-or-a-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=1962","title":{"rendered":"Week #235 – “Grab a coffee!” (or a movie, or tea, or a walk…)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

“Mmmm…coffeee.” (photo and capuccino by Grace Church)<\/p><\/div>\n

Week #235 – “Grab a coffee!” (or a movie, or tea, or a walk…)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Greetings, Tribe — and Happy Friday!!!<\/p>\n

Can you believe it’s already March 15th?! \u00a0I have to be honest…I can’t believe it’s already Friday, let alone the middle of March!<\/p>\n

It has been a non-stop week of busyness for me…which always leaves me fantasizing about the luxury of a long, lingering lunch or coffee or movie with friends (3 hours and 20 minutes to be exact…we saw The Godfather Part II).<\/p>\n

Which reminds me of this post from Week #137<\/a>: a week someone invited me to coffee…and I accepted!<\/p>\n

[Re-post from Week #137: “Grab a coffee!”]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I have to be honest…I don’t socialize much.<\/p>\n

It’s not because I don’t want to. \u00a0Between odd working hours, night-owl status, and the love of quiet time — I just don’t get out during the day a whole lot.<\/p>\n

And…I’m not too good at it.<\/p>\n

Which means I don’t do lunch, coffee, or even happy hour nearly as often as I should!<\/p>\n

But this week…someone invited me to coffee. \u00a0And despite every cell of my being wanting to run home to the next project on my to-do list, I accepted.<\/p>\n

And you know what? \u00a0It was really nice!<\/p>\n

Ever notice how really hard it is to make friends as an adult? \u00a0Everyone is so busy with kids, work, husbands, wives, elderly parents, or soccer\/baseball weekends. \u00a0It leaves very little time for adults to get to know each other.<\/p>\n

I don’t even have kids and this is true for me. \u00a0Many of my adult friends have been made through work. \u00a0Sweating and stressing side-by-side has a way of bonding people! \u00a0(You also have the added bonus of learning about people’s character before you venture into social engagement with them!)<\/p>\n

Meeting up with an (almost) complete stranger to “grab a coffee” was a challenge. \u00a0Would I be interesting or funny enough? \u00a0Would it get too heavy? \u00a0Would I talk too much? \u00a0Not enough? \u00a0Would I ask the right questions? \u00a0Would we have to talk\u00a0politics? \u00a0To be honest…it was uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Which is exactly why I did it!<\/p>\n

I work with strangers every day…and have no trouble talking to the random guy on the train, the lady at the grocery store, even getting\u00a0critical notes on my work. \u00a0But to sit down and have a conversation just for the hell of it? \u00a0That’s a whole different thing!<\/p>\n

But\u00a0I’m so glad I did!<\/p>\n

Swapping stories with someone about who we are, what we do, how we got here, what we’re working on, and where we’re going\u00a0— it helped shake up my own perspective. \u00a0Not just of myself — but others. \u00a0To spend time listening, engaging, asking questions, and sharing experiences — it not only connected me to another person, it re-connected me to myself.<\/p>\n

And that might be the most important coffee date of all!<\/p>\n

Your Happyness Challenge for the week ahead: “Grab a coffee!” (or a movie, or tea, or a walk). \u00a0<\/strong>Find someone this week that you’d like to get to know better — and grab a coffee! \u00a0It could be a coworker, a neighbor, another parent from school, or a seat mate on your commute home. \u00a0Yes, it might be awkward…but give it a try! \u00a0Set a time limit, have some place to go, or only so-much-money in the meter…but don’t back out!<\/p>\n

Your invitation, just like mine, might be the only one that person receives in a long time!<\/p>\n

Spread Happyness — grab a coffee (or a movie…or a Jamba Juice as this turned out)! \u00a0And share your stories in the comments!<\/strong><\/p>\n

3\/15\/19 by Grace Church
\n<\/em>\u00a9 Grace Church
\ngrace@spreadhappyness.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Week #235 – “Grab a coffee!” (or a movie, or tea, or a walk…) Greetings, Tribe — and Happy Friday!!! Can you believe it’s already March 15th?! \u00a0I have to be honest…I can’t believe it’s already Friday, let alone the middle of March! It has been a non-stop week of busyness for me…which always leaves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1962"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1983,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions\/1983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}