We learned last time that if we take it that humans are here to tend the earth and keep their society moving, than we individually are here to reduce friction and improve communication with each other. The most hands-on way is of course to be a direct vehicle in the reduction of that friction, but it’s pretty great anytime we work to avoid causing friction or bungling communication when a clearer choice was available.
Although it sounds pretty manageable to say “Society can live on indefinitely if we just talk to each other with more intent”, one can still ask what the catch is and where we are expected to begin. So, for those of us who really need this whole meaning of life thing handed to them on a plate, step one is to know yourself. You can think you know everything about another person, nation, or culture, but if you don’t understand your own, if you aren’t honest with yourself about yourself, then you’ll simply never get it.
Think back to one of the first episodes of this season when we spoke about your elevator pitch, and how you would expand it to a 10 minute introduction about yourself. Ten minutes is a long time to speak and you likely created quite a list. I mentioned “buckets” at that time and you may have started to categorize your bullets into “physical”, “social”, “family”, “financial”, “education”, “hobbies”, etc. The number of buckets and the naming don’t entirely matter. It is more important that you see which of your named buckets you lean too heavily on. If your physical bucket seems to be overflowing, you might consider whether you focus too much on your illnesses, battles, hospital visits, and expect those around you to be as engaged as you are (they’re not). Contrarily speaking, there may no bucket about hobbies for you, because you have none, maybe you have no time because you are hyper-focused on your career. This may be fine for you, but as you begin to interact with the world, you may find you are less effective because you are unable to swing from topic to topic when conversations change in a group setting. You just hope it will come back around to your glory days in high school, for instance.