The first thing that jumped out at me in this article was the statement, "There’s an economic theory out there that if you take the incomes of your five closest friends and average them, the resulting number will be pretty close to your own income". This is speaking for everyone, but my best guess is for many people, at least 2 or 3 of their closest friends probably come from their job simply because they spend so much of their life at their job. I agree with the concept of you are what you surround yourself with, but I didn't think that "economic theory" was that much of a breakthrough idea.
I definitely agreed with his thoughts on reading. In order to be a true thinker in society and have opinions on a range of topics, it is important to read as much as possible. I like his idea of finding those people we love reading and find out what they read and work our way up the "reading family tree".
Without being cliche, the thing I found most useful was one of his parting pieces of advice, "be nice". In the end what are we here for? To make friends not enemies. I know we don't live in a utopia, but such a simple phrase has such a powerful undertone.
Matt, I took the economic theory statement a little differently. I remember working with folks who wanted to try something new, maybe start their own business or whatever, they were often talked out of it by well-meaning coworkers. I read once about how fisherman catch crabs and put them in buckets. They can all escape any time by crawling out. However, when one tries, they are pulled back into the bucket by the other crabs. I think that is how we can be at times when someone wants to try something we are not comfortable with.
ReplyDeleteI loved the article. I have the same few friends I have had for many years...and the same wife!
Have a great summer and hopefully we can share a class again in the future.