Friendly ambitious nerd
“You all have a little bit of ‘I want to save the world’ in you, that’s why you’re here, in college. I want you to know that it’s okay if you only save one person, and it’s okay if that person is you.” – tahtahtahlia’s anthropology professor
FRIENDLINESS is about being a nourishing presence. It’s about becoming somebody who people (including yourself!) love and enjoy. It’s about creating supportive, encouraging spaces where people can feel comfortable sharing their honest feelings. Humans are a social species, we’re practically wired to desire kinship, to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. So why not get good at it? To be a great friend, I believe that it’s necessary to learn to address your own neediness and insecurities, and to cultivate an abundance mindset in relation to other people. Learn to give sincere compliments, to be a gracious host, to be artful in conversation, to always be a cherished asset in any social space you inhabit.
AMBITION is about daring to dream bigger. It’s about realizing that you can live a much “larger” life. Ambition is often framed as the desire for power and prestige. I prefer to frame it as something more intimate.
Ambition to me is about wanting to do more, be more, see more, learn more, know more.
It’s about recognizing that your own imagination is a bottleneck that limits the amount of good you can create in the world. Untethered ambition by itself can be a dangerous thing, but if you temper your ambition with good taste and ground it with a sensitivity to others, I believe it can be a force for tremendous good.
NERDINESS is about cultivating taste and curiosity. It’s about developing the courage to be honest with yourself about what you find interesting. A lot of what is beautiful in the world was made by nerds – music, technology, science, movies, books, you name it. It’s a fundamentally nerdy thing to decide to sit down and spend years of your life exploring your interests. Doing this is a joy in itself, and it’s also a great gift that you can give to others. To be a nerd is to liberate yourself from over-preemptively worrying about what other people think. By doing the nerd’s work, you will develop a healthy, rigorous and honest regard for your own opinions. You’ll find, delightfully, that others start valuing your thoughts more, too!
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