SMILE it's Lent (nearly)

This is my project over the next few weeks. Starting 9th March, Lent begins, and therein a bunch of people fumble through a 40 day fad. Well, this year I have decided that my 40 day fad is not going to be a praise-seeking, worthless stint of giving up chocolate or coffee (or Johnny Depp...) but instead I'm going to do the pro-active, DO SOMETHING type of Lent activity. I wondered what I could do precisely which would meet this criteria that could actually, seriously be something. And as someone of tiny proportions I decided that maybe starting small would be a good idea. So, this year, my aim is to make EVERYONE on my facebook friends list SMILE at least once before Easter. Now, there are a number of potential to objections to this, which I will examine briefly as follows...

1) That's not really much of a big deal.

No, not really, I did say I was starting small. But maybe it is more of a task than you had originally thought. I mean I have 130 odd friends on facebook, the vast majority of which I have limited actual contact with. Just a quick look at some of the names on there faced me with friends of friends, people who have me on limited profile, family members who I see only twice a year and...exes. Some of those people I don't much feel like making smile. But then, that's the whole point. Jesus didn't come to Earth thinking 'I'll just save my bessie mates, the rest of them I'm not too fussed about' If He had, I doubt I would have made the list. No; love is universal, and it has nothing to do with liking someone, or, indeed, how much you talk to them. So...you know, not a HUGE deal but a LITTLE deal. For now.

2) You can't measure this!

The Sheldon Cooper in me pointed out that in order for this to be success I needed some way of measuring the number of people who smiled before Easter and whether those people smiled because of me. And how on earth do I do that? It is so impractical I feel it's not worth bothering with. This social experiment is not scientific, it would be nice if people did let me know whether my attempt to make them smile worked but it's not always gonna happen, but if I have attempted to make everyone on my friends list smile before Easter that will be enough. And if some people let me know it didn't work then I will definitely have another go at it!


3) It's not selfless.

This brings me to that episode of Friends where it was more or less discovered that every seemingly 'selfless' act is actually selfish in one respect at least. I'm not especially doing this for a gooey 'I did good' feeling, but I won't complain if it turns up. And yeah maybe I'm not doing anything life changing or anything amazingly selfless like that, but I'm making a start. Seeing if I can actually help people within my Internet community. Maybe I can? I don't know.

4) How does this work, practically?

Basically, I'll do it whatever way I can. Via snail mail, e-mail, facebook, in person, whatever I think is appropriate. I might get it wrong, but I'm willing to take that risk.

This brings me onto the rules for the Lent challenge, because, let's face it, there needs to be some sort of guidelines. They are as follows.

1) I am not allowed to delete any facebook friends between the date of this blog post and Easter Sunday.

2) I can add as many friends as I want between now and Easter Sunday, but any added friends must be included in the challenge.

3) I am allowed to tell the person that I am doing it for Lent, but I am not obliged to.

4) I do not have to use facebook to make the person smile.

5) I must have attempted to make everyone on my facebook friends list smile by midnight on Saturday 23rd April 2011.

6) Any attempts made before midnight on the 9th March 2011 do not count.

That's basically it, before this task becomes less a spontaneous, good idea construed on a whim and more a carefully structured, mundane activity done out of a sense of duty.

Hopefully this will be a worthwhile challenge, and hopefully I'm not the only one who thinks it is worth anything... so I think that's it. Oh and, if you are interested...don't forget to check my blog for further updates once the challenge begins.