DoorDash Won't Deliver a Friend
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photo credit: Giorgio Trovato/Unsplash
“How am I ever going to meet someone?” Victoria knows that she should get out more but her life is non-stop. It takes a huge effort just to reach out to friends, not to mention dating. At night, all she wants is a real conversation with a real human being. “I don’t see another date on the horizon, unless I go back on Tinder. Ugh.”
Victoria feels like she lives in a bubble, just her and her phone. She checks her email when she wakes up. She listens to podcasts on the train. Then she falls asleep watching Trevor Noah to keep up with the news. Sometimes she wonders, “is my phone keeping me company or keeping me hostage?”
She does appreciate all the things she has earned. There are people who don’t have safe homes with huge supermarkets down the street. She has Netflix and Amazon and can dial up DoorDash the moment she feels hungry.
Thinking how she lives so far from any real danger, Victoria wondered how we lived a million years ago in caves. We only made it through the winter because we belonged to a clan. It was like a death sentence if we got cast out. Cave people couldn’t make it alone. Either the elements would get us or we would die of starvation.
Safe in her heated apartment, with wi-fi to meet her every material need, Victoria realized that she has a modern problem: she is isolated from real people. Even though she doesn’t live in a cave, she still wants to belong to a tribe. She wants to share good times and be inspired. She wants to help others, too.
She only gets to text and FaceTime friends and share pictures on Instagram. She gets excited when someone “likes” her IG post but she isn’t really connecting with human beings.
When she gets a notification from social media, it gives her a boost for a minute or two. It’s like the shallow hit of dopamine from her phone reassures her that she isn’t isolated. But that warm feeling fades quickly, revealing the ache that she’s alone again.
Her interactions with people turn into transactions, a cost-benefit ratio. Does she have a big “network”? Is he “needy”? People become a set of assets (what you can do for me) and liabilities (what I have to deal with). “Is that how people see me?”
Victoria knows that she is much MORE than a number.
Victoria’s problems aren’t unique. We are all living through a revolution in how we connect. We are in a loose “network,” not a tight tribe with whom we can build something. Gathering a million “friends” is easy but it doesn’t yield anything that we can rely on.
The Industrial Age is long gone. We don’t even live in The Knowledge Age anymore. A middle school student with a phone has as much access to knowledge as you do. We are living in a Connection Economy.
In this new age based on connections, your wealth will depend on the quality (not quantity) of relationships you can build and maintain. If you are like Victoria, surrounded by friends-on-paper, where can you start building real bonds with real humans?
Where can you find people
who actually “see” you?
You deserve to belong to a group of people who see your potential. You can expand the ways that people in your tribe see what is possible. You are a unique combination of your strengths and gifts and talents.
Meet the people who see your value. Invest in those relationships and watch them grow. Give generously and find ways to create something together. Find your tribe.
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Find Your Tribe (Build Your Support Team)
on March 3rd
AND
Let it GO! (Stop Giving a HOOT
About What Other People Think)
on March 4th