I just exchanged Tweets with a random person I met a few months ago on Twitter named @ileenieweenie.  When we first met, we bonded over LOVING the rain after a parching hot summer.  Then, she’s been checking up with me to see how I’m doing after I had to reschedule our lunch when I was sick.  She’s got a silly dog named Walter, who might make great buddies for my Silly Sophie Sue.  Tonight, we got into a great conversation about designers and developers.  Our conversation reinspired me to work on a project another friend of mine and I had started on.  It gave me more ideas for automation and information delivery.  An email I started to her, and spared her from, will help with a whole line of thinking and a book I’m interested in writing.   I copied the email into Evernote, which I told her about.  She got it, but doesn’t get it yet.  It’s too late tonight to explain it, but she’s about to fall in love as soon as I get a chance to tell her more about it.  I hope I can help her as much as communicating with her inspired me.  And I’m looking forward to seeing her work and continuing our conversation about the communication and knowledge gaps between designers and developers.

Who knew, right?  Random Good Fortune.

It started me thinking about some other random fun I’ve had in my recent past.  A few times it was just a quick exchange, a fleeting moment, an interaction I knew would never be a friendship or anything more than that 30 second exchange.  But there’s been a few other times recently when I just had a feeling that something much, much bigger…a Game Changer…was about to occur.  In fact the phrase Game Changer?  Came right straight from someone I met this past week.  And the cool thing is that we might end up being exactly that for each other.

I’m not really a believer in a lot of the things from books like The Secret.  I’m not inclined to subscribe to the thinking that things happen for a reason either.  I believe they simply happen.  And then WE can assign the reason.  If we want them to have purpose and meaning, we have the opportunity to turn them into just that.  If nothing else, we can enjoy life by reaching out in that moment and enjoying the random interaction and the fun we can share by just being nice to each other.  In other situations, we can reach out and ask for what we really want; a chance to meet again in some capacity; an opportunity to share, be heard or listen, exchange.

IleenieWeenie and I ended up emailing tonight. 140 characters just isn’t enough, as @amoyal and I were talking about earlier in the week.  I believe the 140 on Twitter, and the communication on Facebook and other online communities with quick updates is a start.  It’s a way to meet, a way to catch up, a small way to share. It can grow into a larger conversation if the tool allows.  I’ve been on SparkPeople for a few years, and have formed some deep, wonderful relationships (with random people I’ve ‘met’ there) because we can express ourselves using as much space as we want.  I love it when a random beginning deepens into another dimension, another form of communication.  I’m looking forward to meeting Ileenie, too, and to what might come from our random beginning.

I played a little game with myself after we got done emailing.  I made myself think of as many random interactions I either enjoyed or wanted to grow to something more than a fleeting moment.  I’ve been aware for a long time of how randomness drives my life as much or more than purposeful action.  As I write down these random beginnings to relationships or fleeting fun interactions, it renews my commitment to continue reaching out and being open to others as I can in my life.  The value far outweighs any cost I’ve ever paid from the times it didn’t go as planned.

Over the next few days I’ll share the examples I came up with.  I know I’ll have big fun thinking and writing about this over the next few days.  Do you have a meeting, a piece of Random Good Fortune? I’d get a kick out of hearing your story.

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