Get Social Now
A quickie but goodie post for you:
Get more social right away. Get out of the house and go hang out with an old friend or a group of friends regularly. Meet new friends as much as possible. If you have to stay in the house get a Facebook account and reconnect with old friends, classmates, and acquaintances.
I have been doing a lot of both recently and I feel phenomenal. I’ve been doing a ritual with my friends where we go to a Pub Quiz trivia game every Wednesday night and I get to cut loose, unplug for a while and get loud. We have a good time, I build my connections in that venue a little bit and then walk home feeling recharged.
Facebook is a much better tool for socializing and relationship management than MySpace it seems. While I still maintain my MySpace account (minimally), I am connecting with friends in a way on Facebook that just didn’t seem possible before. I know people that just dropped off the radar for me will pop up at some point and I once again will have access to that person in my life and I in theirs.
I also attended a friend’s birthday party on Friday night and a Halloween party on Saturday night. I met a lot of cool people and really enjoyed myself. While at times going out more, building new connections, and meeting people can be overwhelming and you can feel over-socialized a bit, the realization that it is like a muscle really helps to put things in perspective. I feel like I was much more attuned to the social vibe on Saturday night than on Friday (and much more on Friday than Wednesday) not surprisingly.
This increased social activity can make me more friends, more networking opportunities(which leads to job and income possibilities), and just makes me generally happier overall. You absolutely NEED other people to be successful in life. Accept it and embrace it.
Social skills and emotional health are two big indicators of future success. So make a game out of it. Go out as much as you can and meet some new people. Get a Facebook account and manage all the great relationships in your life for when you can’t go out often. You will be surprised to find that the more you do it, the better you will get. You might meet the person that can change your life for the better.
