You don't need to collect the "right" kind of friends. This kind of thinking strips the humanity out of the process. It's an understandable conclusion but highly misleading.
The simplest heuristic to use that will get you to a better place - is to maintain/grow the connect with people you care about. What does that mean? Why do you care about certain ppl? How do they make you feel? What needs of yours are they meeting? How well do you understand/misunderstand their needs?And what is involved in maintaining and growing the connect through good and bad times?
The world can be divided into people who think about these questions all the time and those who don't. No guesses to who has more connections and is more comfortable calling in favours.
The good news is you too can spend time on those questions even if you currently don't. The more you do and deeper your answers get the more satisfying your life gets.
A large part of the human brain is devoted to social connection. But you have to learn and exercise it for the best results.
> You don't need to collect the "right" kind of friends. This kind of thinking strips the humanity out of the process. It's an understandable conclusion but highly misleading.
I hate myself writing this, but I'm also going to say that you sometimes don't have the privilege of making friends for friend's sake. I'm Chinese, and in college I went out of my way to collect "useful" friends and curry favors because I knew that my parents (poor immigrants from Shangdong) couldn't support me if something happened, and I would rather die before asking them for more than they've already given me. It felt slimy and grotesque to work relationships in this way, but for me it felt like the only way to survive and build a safety net.
The simplest heuristic to use that will get you to a better place - is to maintain/grow the connect with people you care about. What does that mean? Why do you care about certain ppl? How do they make you feel? What needs of yours are they meeting? How well do you understand/misunderstand their needs?And what is involved in maintaining and growing the connect through good and bad times?
The world can be divided into people who think about these questions all the time and those who don't. No guesses to who has more connections and is more comfortable calling in favours.
The good news is you too can spend time on those questions even if you currently don't. The more you do and deeper your answers get the more satisfying your life gets.
A large part of the human brain is devoted to social connection. But you have to learn and exercise it for the best results.