First, how would you go about increasing the likelihood of positive chance encounters? Well, you could start spending more time talking to strangers and making friends with people.
But but but… Opportunity costs, anyone? I can only be friends with so many people, and a random stranger isn’t particularly likely to be one of the people it’d be most worth it to be friends with. Wouldn’t I be better off focusing on people I already know are awesome, and people I am introduced to?
Wouldn’t I be better off focusing on people I already know are awesome, and people I am introduced to?
This assumes you are good at detecting awesomeness, and are the sort of person that gets introduced to people.
I would hazard to guess that many ‘unlucky’ people have neither. (In fact, I would hazard to guess that many ‘unlucky’ people simply don’t have a good social network or a good way to establish one, and lucky people are already following your protocol, leading to a strong Matthew effect).
Good point, but it’s only really a problem if you’re investing even resources in all your friends. For the vast majority of my friends and family, I keep in touch with Facebook, which makes the opportunity cost of keeping everyone updated on my life (and vice versa) near zero. For a handful of people who are above-average awesome I make the extra effort of skyping or visiting them in person.
But but but… Opportunity costs, anyone? I can only be friends with so many people, and a random stranger isn’t particularly likely to be one of the people it’d be most worth it to be friends with. Wouldn’t I be better off focusing on people I already know are awesome, and people I am introduced to?
This assumes you are good at detecting awesomeness, and are the sort of person that gets introduced to people.
I would hazard to guess that many ‘unlucky’ people have neither. (In fact, I would hazard to guess that many ‘unlucky’ people simply don’t have a good social network or a good way to establish one, and lucky people are already following your protocol, leading to a strong Matthew effect).
Good point, but it’s only really a problem if you’re investing even resources in all your friends. For the vast majority of my friends and family, I keep in touch with Facebook, which makes the opportunity cost of keeping everyone updated on my life (and vice versa) near zero. For a handful of people who are above-average awesome I make the extra effort of skyping or visiting them in person.