The Benefits of Yapping

I always wanted to be the stoic hero.  The cool cucumber.  The person of few words.

But that's not me, and I have to accept that.

I'm a yapper.

I will tell you online if I have a splinter, what I made for dinner, and why I don't like mushrooms.

I try NOT to be the person who does a blow-by-blow of her whole day, but I do like to make comments that I think will spark conversation.

Okay, maybe all the posts about spiders isn't such a great idea, but I meet people and occasionally learn things (like I've got to stop talking about black widows if I want my east coast friends to ever come for a visit).

I do most of this yapping on Facebook.

So my point is that sometimes yapping is extremely beneficial.

Today, for example, I yapped about having a splinter in my heel that I can't get at, can't see, and can't abide.  People I don't know at all responded... and one of the recommendations was "black drawing salve".  I'd never heard of it but in googling it I see it's something that sounds promising.

Once, I was yappying (lamenting) about needing a kiln that would do something my current kiln wouldn't do.  But the kiln I wanted was a minimum of $600.  A little pricey for a new workshop toy.  A few comments later and someone in the Bay Area said she had one she wasn't using and she offered me a price I, not only couldn't refuse, couldn't believe.

A couple years ago, I was yapping about a car that needed to go to the junkyard because it wasn't running.  I mentioned I was thinking of donating it to charity for the tax write-off except that I'd get no tax write-off because you have to itemize and that year I wasn't doing that.  A friend sent me a msg through FB about a place where I could sell the car for a significant amount of money.  A few weeks later, it was a done deal.  I totally owe her lunch (at a minimum).

And the best outcome of all from my yapping was finding another hockey family clear across the United States who took my daughter under their wings for several years as she began her college career, 3000 miles from home, with no car, and knowing not a single other person over there.  That kind of selfless giving doesn't grow on trees.

Had I not been "yapping", none of these wonderful things would have happened.


So maybe I don't want to change myself after all.

Along those lines, I was reading something the other day about another trait of mine that I don't like, but that turns out may be linked to something I very much do like and would not like to sacrifice one for the other (but that's a subject for the book, so don't worry, I won't yap about it here).

[ETA: My internet friend, Kerry, who I wouldn't know at all without my yapping and my life would be the lesser for it... just reminded me I forgot to state the obvious.  My yapping has brought into my world some of the most awesome friends I can imagine.  In this blog post I was focusing on the totally random things my yapping has achieved, but let's totally not forget the non-random things too.  Thanks Kerry, friend, perhaps fellow yapper!]

BTW, if yapping has led to something good for you, big or small, I'd love to hear about it.  Leave me a comment!