Attracting Like-minded Folks and Luck

Working with 2 prompts, 1 post. Not written by AI. I know I should have split this into two different posts given how each subject consists of around 1k words each, but then the autovotes would vote me twice and I can't handle the pressure of earning too much from shitposting.

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Eventually, everyone will be surrounded by people they deserve.

It’s no accident that you decided to be friends with Beth over Karen because Beth agrees with most of your views while Karen argues with you for the same views. Being social creatures and having the drive to fulfill a need to belong, we go for people that share the same interests. And this is how peer to peer reviews start as you screen each other’s mutual friends. Grow the group and make it exclusive, then you have an echo chamber.

The amount of hypocrisy I have to endure hearing someone claim to be an open-mind yet sticks with the same group of people fostering rigid ideas can reach heroic levels. How do you even know your blind spots if you keep limiting your exposure to people who avoid giving you a differing view? Everyone can claim they have an open-mind until they hear an opinion they don’t like and are more likely inclined to Google the stuff that proves them wrong rather than entertain points that maybe their own logic is flawed. This is confirmation bias at work. You look for things that prove you right when science was about trying to debunk our own biases.

I went a bit in tangent right now but the idea I was going for was that your friends became your friends because you predominantly don’t disagree with them often. And the social circle expands as you grow your mutual friends and sift which ones can be in the tribe. So how does this logic apply in improving community building? If you have a preference to welcome highly effective people in your community, the value of your community rises as effective people make things better than when they found the community in the first place.

If you want to excel at something, then go with people that are effective at doing what exactly it is you want to be good at. You’ll pick up some habits related to the skill that you’re building and this isn’t possible if you’re picking a crowd that does nothing related to your goal. Want to learn how to be a better at trading? probably best to talk to people that actually trade and learn from their mistakes. Want to get some good financial advice? maybe start with asking only people that are into business, accounting, taxes, and finance instead of your neighbor, family or friend that isn’t into money talks.

If you surround yourself with people that celebrate a doom and gloom atmosphere, you’re going to get a doom and gloom perspective about life. If you stick with people that constantly make bad decisions, don’t expect you’ll learn how to make good ones because of the role models you learned to be with. You want things to remain the way they are, look no further and just rot solo. Our will to seek out like minded individual or groups influences where we end up with in life.

So if you’re contented with how things are and are not doing that things to make your life better, the chances of you meeting like-minded people wired for mediocrity are good so then you can stagnate together. We eventually deserve the kind of friends/group/community we get based on these small decisions. Who you surround yourself with influences your own success and it’s no magic that if you spend more time with friends that are highly-driven to do something for themselves over friends that dream less, then you’ll adapt a perspective that predisposes you to take on more opportunities for self-improvement.

Ever since I got busy with doing side gigs in medschool sitting at the back of the class, I managed to influence my friend to do the same. It wasn't a sales talk about hey do this to earn money. I just did my own thing and answer questions they had about my work and they'll notice I'll concentrate on the task a lot.

It was easy because he was also driven and knew there was a real world outside the four corners of the room. We had our own tribe, but we were also included in other groups in the class. It came to a point when he was asked by his other friends why he spends less time with them now.

Me: Why? Don’t you miss hanging out with them?
Him: Yeah but I don’t earn anything for my time. It’s just study and gossip with them.
Me: Ok. Here’s the next assignment.

And the conversation ended there as we just started to mind our own business writing or doing virtual tasks at the back of the class. We had a mutual understanding and had the same goals like building capital for investing in stocks for trading. But for others who weren’t wired to do more productive stuff beyond studying, it was difficult for them to see what we were on about at the back of the class. Soon a few more people just joined in the group for the same goals at making side income and then it ended up being a group working part-time at the back of the class.

I didn’t seek these people out to join me, they just asked and whether they could because they were also driven to do more outside studying for their own personal goals. And as a group, majority of the room didn’t understand our perspective at life but that’s ok. He ended up being a stock trader and quit medschool during the same semester, earned his first million earlier than initially projected, and became one of the national award winning traders during a trading competition.

Those are the people I have in my circle, and this is where I follow through my next point:

If you’re someone that has value, people will seek you out and people with value also seek each other because they know how to recognize one another. And growing this network comes with peer to peer validation.

It’s not an accident, it’s natural that you’d be introducing your friends to your other friends because you find them well adjusted to your other circle. You get introduced to their friends and their friends are likely to keep the same like-minded level of productivity as you expected from your current set of friends too. The same can also be said for people that seek out the wrong people which snowballs into being introduced into the wrong set of crowd.

One can say I’m selective about the people I’m with and for good reason. If you’re not someone that exemplifies something of value, then there’s little business to go on. It’s not you, it’s me. I just don’t want to spend my time with people that do social energy drain in exchange for unproductive time, engaging in conversations that don’t influence anything, conversations that lead to no learning, and the list of things that cost time but hardly matter at all. In fact, I’d lose value if I bother engaging more time with gossip and casual chats that lead to nowhere.

I think the more amount of time you spend being accommodating everyone else is directly proportional to how much the world and others can make you their bitch. This is for those that want to break the habit of pleasing people that don’t even matter or care about them at all but still grudgingly become someone else’s bitch. The message you’re giving away to the world is, here I am, I’m available to be bothered, I’m not busy doing something else and I can’t say no, bother me and make me your bitch.

My phone used to ring from people that asked me for favors. But it’s been years since I received a text asking me how I’m doing. How I’m doing? The messages I receive are ads and work related conversations.

Them: Good [time of day] Cosby, how are you?
Me: Good [time of day] Drew, fine, what do you want?
Drew: Whoa! suplado mo naman, nangungumusta lang (rude, I’m just asking how you are)
Me: Nobody drops me a message out of the blue to exchange pleasantries, ads, work related or friends setting an appointment are the usual messages I receive. So I assume you want something from me?

Despite how the text sounds like, I was being neutral and casual because it's the truth. There are no emotions there. Just a blank stating a matter of fact.

They never replied and my peace was restored. It probably wasn’t important for them to be desperate for another round. But a few months after the incident, they learned do to a proper message.

Drew: Good [time of day] Cosby, sorry about the last time [insert insincere apology buildup for the actual thing they want], when are you available for coffee? [Insert talks about a project they need financing].

It’s not a question about being unfriendly, it’s more along the lines of prioritizing the most value I can derive for my available time and some people can’t respect that. They may take into heart as a rejection, probably is, but generally it’s still an it’s not you, it’s me thing. I don’t expect people to relate if they themselves don’t practice the same habits. If they’re used to wasting their time for pointless things, it’s already alien language for them to focus on productive things. Eventually, your habit and interests will lead you to the same like-minded people and you can start a community you eventually deserve.

On Hive, it’s just trying to bring and give back value the ecosystem while focusing on a specific community for growth. The community has been filled with people who at least share the like-minded idea of helping each other out using the community resources on hand and value just snowballs from there. There’s no magic in the process because the community is meant for Filipinos, it attracts other Filipinos. Those that share the same vision will eventually find their place in the community.

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Leaving Your Shit to Fate

It’s just conceited to be thinking that stars from billions of light years away from each other will go out of their way to be in a constellation just to signal you this is the sign that you’ve been waiting for. Can you imagine those enormous ball of hot gases just sending each other messages talking about how humans would interpret their fates over the smallest change in orbit?

But maybe the signs and strong beliefs in luck are exactly what people need to keep their shit together. Because facing the consequences of ones’ own actions can be too difficult that blaming it on stars that mind their own business is less threatening to the ego. I don’t know, maybe there’s a reason why bad things happened to you, perhaps it was just bad timing set out by the heavens, forced into situations out of your control, or you just have a habit of making stupid decisions.

Something bad or good happening to you isn’t luck, maybe part of it is luck. Saying it is plain luck undermines your active agency over the decisions you make that led to the event called luck. What are the chances of befriending a doctor while you’re in a hospital? What are the chances of befriending a doctor in an establishment near a hospital? What are the chances of befriending a doctor while hiking at the top of Mt. Everest? Setting some examples to the extremes but you get the point. Maybe you don't need to be on the right time all the time to get what you want but your chances of success are raised if you are in the right place anyway.

This is forcing luck that you want. You do actions that raise the probability you’re getting the results you desire whether you’re conscious about it or not. What are the odds of winning the lottery without a ticket? Zero unless that lottery didn’t require tickets. What if you have a ticket? Not that great but the chances aren’t zero. What are the chances of scoring high relative to how long you study for an exam?

So what are the chances of getting unfortunate outcomes when you consistently put yourself in situations that predispose you to negative outcomes. Whenever I see a chronically ill patient with liver disease, I ask what was the cause and if someone says their cirrhosis is triggered by chronic alcohol ingestion, my sympathy meter falls a little. It looks like someone’s paying the cost. The same goes for smokers tempting lung cancer to take them. Bad choices were made on repeat that led to this outcome.

But it still amazes me how strongly ingrained the Filipino culture is at the individual level. Got sick? Maybe you stepped on some mystical creature and need to make amends to be healed. Maybe this is just divine punishment for doing a lot of misdeeds in your life? I don’t know, maybe all those are true and also you’re stupid and constantly make dumb decisions expecting a favorable outcome?

Accountability for your own well-being isn’t easy. It’s easier to blame an external force in the form of people or nature for the circumstances we find ourselves in. Even if we had roles to play that led us to where we are right now, there was a point in time when you only needed to say no. It takes a while for some people to reflect that they are their own driving force that leads to their unfavorable circumstances.

So my unsolicited advice at wanting more good luck in their life is to live healthy, avoid vices, and learn something that can make one productive. The worst outcome for following that advice is you living longer and becoming a better person than your yesterday’s version. It’s a solid advice that majority aren’t going to practice because the bad stuff can feel so good even if it’s not what is going to make you live happier

Do yourself a favor and not attribute the good things that happen in your life as luck because you made effort to bring about that outcome. You wouldn’t get a job unless you’re interested in seeking one. You wouldn’t find love if you weren’t open to it. The point is keeping your chances of achieving what you want not in zero and to raise those probabilities.

Look at me giving life advices online for some invisible audience. There’s no magic bullet to self-improvement that can’t be Google’d. There’s a reason you get the same consistent advice that were true centuries ago and still are up to now, because those advices work but you’re busy trying to find the secret sauce or magic bullet to instantly fix problems brought about by long term self-sabotage.

But hey, if those points didn’t get through to you, you could always consult the daily horoscope for some guidance. Being born in the year of the Panda and under the Chihuahua star sign, I can guarantee you that my luck for today and for the rest of the days will be ruled by whatever I have drawn from a fortune cookie found from the magic wishing hat owned by a psychic or astrologer relying on the positions of the stars.

My fortune said this just now: “People are going to read your shitpost.”

Well that’s my luck. Now I just need to figure out what to shitpost for people to read.

If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.