Know People
November 16, 2020•235 words
546
It's incredibly valuable to know people. Have connections. Not just friends, but people you know. Whatever that might actually mean to you.
And I don't mean that in a selfish way; sure, people can help you, but you also can help them. The relationship can be reciprocal, nay, it should be. You can learn, you can teach. Ask. Answer. Collaborate. Live more fully, once you know people.
Going outside your current environment is also incredibly important. While having a base (physical and in terms of people) is strengthening, going outside of it expands your whole self. Your ideas, your beliefs, your understanding of the world. I don't know how to describe it well, just do it.
The moment when I realized I know someone that knows Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, was when I realized how incredibly important that was. I some sense, Wales and his work has been an inspiration for me ever since I was a little child messing with my dad's computer. Wales seemed like a distant, almost God-like figure. Somebody so far away, so inaccessible. And now, several years later, I knew someone that could introduce me to Jimmy himself.
Fame is definitely not the thing I'm aiming at, as I wrote a few months ago. All I want is to know people that are bold, innovative, warm, helpful.
And I definitely want to be bold, innovative, helpful myself.