Whenever people ask things like “your best advice in 3-4 words” etc, I always go with “seek excellent peers”. Because when you surround yourself with good people, they have a positive effect on everything else in your life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some people find this directive too vague. “How?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well the first thing is to evaluate what you got. Go through your texts, go thru your facebook friends, instagram and twitter mutuals, whatever \u2013get a sense of all the people you typically interact with already, and get a sense of how you feel about them. Who do you respect, admire?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s the thing that’s always fascinating: I ask this of lots of people, and almost everyone will admit that they *don’t* spend most of their social time talking to the people they actually respect\/admire the most. They’re often usually a lil intimidated by them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I think about it, this is true for me, too. I don’t talk to my favorite people nearly as much as I’d like. they seem so busy. I don’t want to waste their time. etc. I think this instinct is a good thing. It’s good to be respectful of people’s time. But it shouldn’t deter you. Rather, in my view, the point is to do a little prep and make an effort. And usually people who are busy, important, etc have to deal with a lot of noise, people making tedious\/unreasonable demands, etc, so when you give them something easy to respond to, they often appreciate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But okay, suppose that’s still sort of out of reach, more effort than you can manage. Here’s the other thing you can do: just make lots of small little bids with people. you can do this with your existing friends \u2013 dm old school\/work friends a meme that reminds you of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can also do this “on the open web”, too. Like, I never ~explicitly~ made this a directive for myself, but I was once some rando on twitter with 150 followers too. and I’d just leave kind\/supportive replies to strangers every day. and like maybe 1 in 10 would follow back. 10 nice comments to strangers a day feels good to begin with, if you do this for 10 years, and the 1-in-10 ratio holds, that’s over 3,000 people. and of course you prioritise the kind, interesting strangers that you’d like to be friends with. over time this changes your self-concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but ok lets say you’re not exactly obsessed with building a massive crew, lol. It’s still worth texting memes to your old friends. most will probably say “haha” “cool” but every so often you’ll get a “heyy! I’ve missed you, how’ve you been?” and then you talk all night. That’s extremely worth it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So lets say you have about 200 facebook friends that you haven’t really talked to in a while. it’ll take you maybe a month or two to text all of them at a casual\/natural pace. (if you’re a maniac you can do it in a day, but the replies may get overwhelming to manage. Do it a bit at a time.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Out of those 200 people, somewhere between 5 to 20 people might have something really interesting to say. someone might know a job opening you’d be a good fit for. someone else might have a newly single friend who’s looking for someone like you. these things can be life-changing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You never know, man. I love social media, &but it’s also just the tip of the iceberg, an entry point. all the interestingness in life is “in the DMs”, it’s the intimate, sacred, private stuff people share with you over beers on the patio at 3am. it’s nourishing to earn that trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don’t get too hung up on any specific step outlined here. The point is to see that social graphs can be tended to, like gardens, and you can grow them, and it doesn’t actually take a ton of effort to get started. and once you get going, you can help other people, as a switchboard<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, you’re not *obliged* to do any of this. god no. it’s just a thing you can do if you feel like it. life is part tedious ordeal and part glorious adventure, and if it feels way too ordeal-y, you gotta choose for yourself what adventures you want. small ones for starters. Best wishes! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
thread of relevant quotes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n