Participation is the most important thing. Many of us have wondered why we weren’t getting more attention from others. Why don’t more people pay more attention to us? We may have been one of those kids that wasn’t in the “popular” crowd. I know I wasn’t. In fact I was so focused on it until I woke up one day and realized that it didn’t matter. What matters is that I find the community I crave - the people I enjoy talking to and then I participate in discussions with them. If all I ever do is ask them to do things for me they will be turned off. I should never ask for that. I am learning to spend more and more of my time thinking of others and how I can be helpful to them. It will come back in spades and that shouldn’t be my motivation. My motivation should be pure and simple to be helpful period. Everything else will take care of itself.