Ambassador... Something

I have written not so long ago about answering for my home state- being an ambassador of sorts. Something not entirely unlike that has begun to happen in connection with other affiliations of mine. Like anyone, as I have lived I have accrued experience with certain things over time, and they have come to partly define me. For a long time, the nature of social networks of which I was a part meant that nothing really became of any mastery or authoritative knowledge I may have possessed of things like Boy Scouts or other things I was up to in those days. I never really had multiple networks of contacts exactly, so there was no other group of people in my life entirely unrelated to the thing that was predominant for me at any given time.

That's changed now, and the diverse makeup of my friends, acquaintances and well-wishers is such that any one thing I'm heavily into may indeed be unknown to a substantial portion of people in my life. I, without any motives or agenda other than sharing my enthusiasm, have organically discussed those things. This has been just because I have enjoyed them. Evidently my joy and overall apparent prosperity in life have done a sales job that I never thought I would be capable of with a conscious effort.

 There are a few big things in my life. There's Toastmasters, improv comedy, and church largely as an outgrowth of improv (sponsored as it is by the church). There's some overlap, mainly between the latter two. The former, however, is entirely independent from the rest. I never have had any thought in my head to force it all together. What's begun to happen now, though, is that people from each have seen what I'm up to among them and heard me talk about the other things. What I guess has happened is that they are beginning to attribute good things they see me do to the influence on me of the things they don't see me do. They then approach me making inquiries. I answer their questions and help them do what they seem to want.

Of course, there are factors involved I can't claim to have anything to do with. I don't think people can really be persuaded. They persuade themselves, and then look for some kind of push from someone who ends up looking as if they were the persuader. It's hard to seem myself as some kind of connector or helper. It seems like something that's just happening. It's what they call leading by example, I suppose. When someone is described that way, it always makes me think that what that means is that the person is just quietly doing their job so competently that people notice and elevate their own work to keep pace. Maybe that's not exactly what I'm doing, but the whole thing feels good. It's very gratifying that people would see me and want any part of that for themselves.  I'm glad what I'm doing isn't deliberate, because if it was it would be selfish.