If your mother is anything at all like my mother, you probably would have heard something along the lines of “Be careful who you talk to on the Internet!” at least 300 times while growing up. (Or. . . at whatever point the Internet entered your life if you were a fully-grown adult by the time it became the entity that we all know and love today.)
Also, if your mother is anything like my mother, she’d be furious at the fact that you’re writing a blog post and addressing her as “Mother” which is apparently the absolute most terrible term to define the maternal parental unit. Sorry, mom.
Anyway, moms and teachers and concerned adults everywhere have told us all for years now to be careful about who we talk to on the Internet.
But then all of a sudden technology happened and now we’re getting into cars, sleeping in houses, and walking dogs belonging to random strangers from the Internet. (Obviously, wisdom and discernment are still absolutely essential while utilizing these services, please don’t misinterpret me here.)
The Internet—and technology in general—has changed how we interact with people, that’s not even remotely up for debate at this point. Most of the time this result is portrayed in a poor light (rightly so). However, there are definite instances of positive outcomes, one of which happened to me recently.
A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to meet up with a relative stranger off the Internet, and I’d have to say that it was one of the better decisions I’ve made in recent history!
Katherine Glader is a fellow Minnesotan and Praxian, and that’s about all I knew going into our coffee-less coffee chat. Just going off of those two factors, though, it stands to reason that she’d be pretty cool.
[For the record—Praxian is a word which here means “A person who has gone (or is currently going) through Praxis, a 12-month business bootcamp and apprenticeship program designed to jumpstart the professional lives of young people all across America without incurring debilitating amounts of debt and existential anguish.” You can learn more about this strange concept here.]
Even with those similarities in mind, I was not at all expecting to have so much in common with her. Summer camps, random denominations, and obscure references to people and events that only a certain breed of people understand (the significance of meeting Phil Vischer, for example) are only naming a few.
By the end of the evening, I had genuinely forgotten that we had literally just met—it felt like we were long-lost friends (or twins, because we also look freakishly alike) reconnecting after years and years.
If we hadn’t both gone out on a limb in hopes that the other wasn’t an axe murderer (or worse—super awkward), we never would’ve made this connection and initiated the start of a beautiful friendship (to quote that one guy).
Just think about how many of those potential connections there are in your city/state/general geographic region! If people and/or relationships are even remotely important to you in your personal and business life, I can’t stress the value of this enough. There are many resources out there on how to meet new people—it’s time to start doing it.
And if you happen to be enrolled in Praxis, that task is so much easier. There is an entire network of interesting, motivated, and future-world-changing people right at your fingertips. The investment of time, energy, and resources necessary for building up those relationships is infinitely worth it.
So take a chance, meet a stranger, make connections, and maybe even show your mama that good things can come from the Internet!