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Becoming strangers

I do not particularly like networking events. Formal ones such as those organized by schools and are termed "career networking night" or "spring prom", are particularly abhorrent to me. The reason is that the end of the night is supposed to bring us closer to gaining employment, making connections to interesting things happening in our fields and so on. If we are lucky, all we end up with is a bunch of fancy business cards that we dump at the bottom of our drawers, never to see the light of day again, and of course a bloated stomach from all those nachos and chicken wings we consumed.

image courtesy of goldenkeyhq.files.wordpress.com
My main problem with these events however, is the premise for the event: highly intelligent people, who know themselves to a certain degree, are going to share some close quarters with strangers, in order to knock around ideas, connect and possibly plan some future engagements. What ends up happening, however, is that highly anxious people with elevator pitches trying to impress strangers, end up collecting many cards, emails and phone numbers. End of story. No wonder these events leave some feeling empty and drained (speaking for myself).

Knowing ourselves - and this is a continuous activity proceeding from mental processes - is the starting point for all connections. Recognizing ourselves helps us to become good mirrors to others. Otherwise, we are stuck in a rut, asking people when we meet them after a weekend, "Oh, how was your weekend? What did you do? Where did you go?" These questions are not really the information we are seeking. Rather, we want to know if these colleagues are having better lives than we are, and are happier than us. We also want to know how they have changed, what new things they have learnt, who they are becoming. We want to ask them, "What have you learnt about happiness of late? Are you closer to figuring out this thing called life? Do you think it's important to buy the new phone if my old one still works?"

We need to substitute talking about the weather, trees, and TV shows with deeper and more scary stuff such as values, fears and ideas. This means that we will not be able to 'talk' to five colleagues in a day, but rather a single one. But when we do have that conversation, it will be rich, intentional, conscious and tangible. We will truly listen to our friends and they will in turn give us their full attention. And on this journey of life, that might be the more important thing.
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