Be Your People, Find Your People

One of the major mantras I heard in undergrad was no doubt meant to assuage the homesickness of the vast majority of new students. Freshman, recent transfers, and traveling students probably heard it the most often. It was simple:

Find your people.

Anyone who found their people were socially fulfilled and truly able to connect on a deep level. Anyone who didn’t find their people presumably felt homesick and lonely. (Presumably, but not necessarily. Also, sidenote: loneliness does not equate to being alone; one can be lonely in a crowded room or not lonely standing at the bow of a one-man sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic with only water in sight.)

The big question:

How?

It certainly can be a different route for everybody who manages to accomplish the goal, but something is common to every avenue. The concept is applicable cross-culturally, too; whether you’re a plumber in Tokyo, Japan or a merchant in Blue Sky, Montana, the same guiding principle is at work for finding your people.

Strive to be your best self.

I know, that’s gotten pretty cliche, but grant me some leniency to unpack the idea.

We naturally gravitate toward people whom we enjoy spending time with. Generally speaking, these people make us feel better about ourselves (and without any sour aftertaste that some interactions leave behind). They raise others up in accordance with their values. They make us feel empowered to truly live more boldly as ourselves. When they walk in the room, our nervousness turns to relief and encouragement. When we would have otherwise choked back laughter due to uncertainty, we smile and laugh freely.

Different people gravitate toward different traits. A common tendency across the board tends to be confidence, but a confident techie won’t have the same influence in a foodie convention as would be expected at a new gadgets convention. Regardless, even mingling with foodies, there’s a certain sense of calm that emanates from people who know who they are even when out of their element. But the techie is still out of their element, and one can only know that if they know what their element is.

The point is, other than confidence, kindness, and respect, most traits vary by who your people are, so the question shifts a little.

(Aren’t you excited? It’s the return of the stick people! … I digress.)

What values do you hold? How can you more fully embrace those values? If fear, embarrassment, and sheepishness were on vacation for a day, what would you do and why? (Bonus question: what is keeping you from living like that now?) Why do you value one thing over another? What do you want to more exemplify in your life? In five, ten, twenty, a hundred years, what do you want to look back on and say, “I chose that habit,” or, “I decided to be that person, and the hard work was well worth it,” or, “I’m proud of myself for making that decision?”

We are who we choose to be.

– Marshal James Raynor, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Campaign

It is up to each of us to navigate the waters of life in the way that maximizes our respective life experiences. The best way to figure out the path that makes the most sense for us is by first figuring out where we want to be. Once we know the goal, we can take directed actions to move toward it. With a target in mind, move toward it by growing in the traits that inspired you to pick that goal in the first place. And if the goal changes, so what? You’ll just have grown in the traits that you admire, and that should help you get to the next goal.

That’s all fine and dandy, but what does that have to do with finding your people?

You can’t find your people if you don’t know whom to look for.

And if you embody the traits that belong to your people, they will seek you out, too!

Once you know the person you want to be and the people you want to be around, you will notice when the people around you embody those traits, and you will be able to actively initiate spending more time with them. Boom: you found your people.

A relevant story…

It’s been rather hectic lately. There’s the pandemic, so many cancellations, and, on the flip side, I’ve had more work the past couple of weeks than any month (or two) last year. (Couple that with loved ones thinking everyone has nothing to do because we’re all stuck sheltering in place and it’s quite the storm.) During really crazy weeks, I typically find solace in attending an extra Mass. Given the cancellation of all public Mass celebrations, I now hop on an online game to let my brain detox.

Most of the time, if I play with anyone online, I’m often the silent addition to the party. I can be a team player and communicate mostly with my actions rather than having to discuss anything. (Instead, I tend to get my chattering out in chat channels where people are posting loopy things or conspiracy theories: there is less of a chance of clashing with personalities that I will have to handle for two hours.)

I join the lobby of my favorite game, thrilled that there is a lobby. (It’s not the most popular game.) There are a few people already there, bantering roughly about this, that, and the other thing. (Imagine yo mama jokes coupled with fake disdain and an obvious friendly familiarity betwixt the parties: that was the vibe.) Braindead though I felt, I also felt my eyes light up at the playful jibes and repartees. The string of commentary was too much for me to not enjoy.

The game’s afoot – and they’re all really good at it. (They’re much better than I am, at least, and I’m halfway decent.) As they’re going, they continue the wordplay. Over the course of the (relatively long) game, I became familiar enough with it to dare to offer my own comment, taking the side of the most recent victim. Specifically, I played naïve and accused one of being unfairly cruel to another. He immediately fell back to a defensive position of explaining that it was all in good fun. At that point, I had to reel in the notion that I was offended by his treatment of another person to assuage his fears that he damaged me, cajoling him into bantering with me.

During that sort of kindly banterous exchange is precisely when I feel most like myself, most like the person I want to be. My courage to dip my toe into the water resulted in an adventure we’re still enjoying. One of my virtues is courage. While I am working on that trait, I’m not about to argue that I have much courage most of the time. It was a decision that I made, fighting against many a fear, that led me to a beautiful friendship with one of my people.

There’s more to the courageous-enough-to-spit-it-out storyline. It wasn’t just a one-hit wonder.

We played several games together, and we were getting along exceptionally well. Come the end of the awesome game day, he shoots me a private message. Not a friend request, a private message. And it’s not a, “What time will you be on tomorrow?” Nope. Much deeper than that.

“Do you believe in God?”

I froze. The question completely caught me off guard. The obvious answer was yes, but the two types of people who would ask that kind of question are typically hardcore atheists and those totally on fire with faith – neither of which I felt as though I could handle right then, so I contemplated pretending to not see the message for a split second. Instead, I expressed gratitude for the wonderful day meeting a great person, sorrowfully resigning myself to losing the contact.

“Yes. Do you?”

My breathing became slightly ragged as soon as I sent the message, and I started fidgeting, saying a silent prayer that he wouldn’t hold it against me. Who admits to anything deep online? I held my breath, pinching my finger, eyebrows furrowed. Although the reply came almost instantly, I remember the intense suspense from that moment.

“Definitely. 😎”

Like Alpha: no follow-up, and no charge. It was just a simple reply stating we were on the same page, establishing a baseline for later communications. I sat there staring at that line for a minute. Based on all of the (admittedly totally irrelevant) evidence, I was convinced he was going to never speak to me again. Instead, I did a simple, small act of standing up for my God, and I was rewarded beyond measure.

I found my people (or at least one of them).

It was a fantastic feeling. It is a fantastic feeling. We connect on a deeper level than was possible before, talking about church and Bible studies and making jokes for Jesus. (Those are hilarious, by the way.) But it’s not just that: we talk food, animals, work, travel, swords (who doesn’t love swords, am I right?), embarrassing moments, highs, lows, and anything else that comes to mind. I can talk about all of the things I want to talk about with, and listen to insights on numerous topics from, an awesome person holding similar values. And all it took from me were baby steps of courage, tiny acts at key moments where I was being the person I want to more fully become. That was it. Baby steps of being the person I want to be, and one of my people found me.

Are you still looking for your people? Whom do you want to be? What small actions are you taking to get there?