I don't drive and I live in the suburbs so naturally I spend a great deal of time commuting. Like most commuters I end up passing the time listening to music, or reading. Although I've noticed recently that more and more people have traded the commuting time passers of books and newspapers for a blackberry upon which they are ferociously texting and tweeting.
Personally I'm a huge fan of microblogging and the simplicity it has brought to communication through the ability to communicate with many people in short updates. However I, like many others have developed a communication dependency, where too often we are quick to tweet/blog about trivial moments or actions in our day. I'm as guilty as anyone, on Monday I tweeted that I was "off for a 80m run in the rain :( ." The equivalent of which, a decade ago would have been to call all of my friends and announce this to them. I'm fairly certain that people would find this information highly unimportant.
However, on that 80m run I had what Oprah would call an "ah-ha" moment; finding a positive capacity for my communication dependency. It was late at night, cold and raining, almost to the point of giving up and walking for the last 20 minutes of my run I came across an elderly lady and a small child. The lady was trying to keep the child off the road and struggling to move some large and quite heavy yard waste bags to the curb for collection. At first I was prepared to run right past them, but something made me stop and ask if she wanted help. The lady gladly accepted. We each took and end of the bags and moved them in under a minute. She thanked me profusely for this simple and small action. I continued on my run, a little faster knowing I had helped someone.
Throughout the rest of my run I could not stop thinking about it. It made me think of "Brownie Tricks," a small deed you do for someone without being asked, something I hadn't thought of in years. The small action had only taken a "Micromoment" of my life, but had obviously helped the lady and helped me as well. I thought of TIG, and our petitions and commitments.
In theory I've committed to helping others, but can I realistically say that I do this everyday? Probably not. So I'm issueing a new challenge. I'm challenging YOU and everyone you know to take a what I'd like to call a "MicroAction", a small, simple deed that will take you a "MicroMoment" to complete. Then microblog about it, and challenge your followers/friends to do the same. Search hashtag #MicroAction to see if we can create MacroChange, by bettering the world 1 small action and 1 quick blog at a time.

1. Take a MicroMoment and complete a MicroAction (small simple deed for someone else)
2. Post a MicroBlog (short and sweet statement) telling everyone what you did
3. Create MacroChange by challenging others to do the same.

We can do this!

Here's the link to commit to this challenge: http://tigurl.org/bwxhy7-micromoment-for-1-microaction--microblog-and-create-macrochange