1. Don’t expect to find friends in the first hour
The first few weeks of university were very awkward – as they should be, considering that each student has massive differences. At school, you’re from the same hood, but at university, there’s literally no common ground. It’s also false to assume that everyone is passionate about what you’re studying; as such, the argument of common interests collapses.
The reality is that good friends are rare, and thus, expecting to find the perfect friends right in the first hour away sets false expectations. (What did the Buddha teach?) I cannot tell whether I will or have made lasting friendships at university, or whether my friendships will remain shallow. Some people are lovely to talk to, but you must understand that there are people you’d gladly talk to for three minutes and not for a second more. Thus, it remains supremely difficult to determine who has the potential to become a friend for life. To put things further into perspective, one of my older friends is ten times as charismatic and reports that he can’t relate to any of his classmates. Everyone I know, including my parents, confirmed that they took a few semesters to build lasting friendships.
But still, I must warn you: with age, it becomes increasingly more difficult to make friends. When I started fifth grade, everyone enthusiastically approached everyone else, whilst adults only accumulated spite. Despite my social skills being three orders of magnitude better than they were two years ago, I have a harder time making friends than I did at school. That means, after the age of twenty-five, you’re done – there is not much time if you have a career and a family, and before you know it, you’re fifty and alone. Beyond the age of twenty-five, many existing friendships collapse because time shows who people really are. Still, people who don’t make friends live shorter and more miserably. For instance, friends are essential for emotional regulation. If I were alone, I wouldn’t have known that it's normal for lasting friendships to take time and I would instead question whether something was wrong with me.
Nevertheless, you shouldn’t rush. Akin to a cowboy’s approach to life, you don’t choose the horse, the horse chooses you – forcing friendships will not bring peace to your life. I can give you an example where said ambition backfired. In September of last year, I concluded that I must be very attractive: I had passion, skills, personality, … and so I decided to ask out any girl I found attractive. And now you may think, ‘that’s good that you’re being accountable and setting goals,’ but I ended up staying inside for four days because I was too afraid. This example may sound strange, but it constitutes a general principle: setting too high expectations increases the action threshold. There are times to work and there are times to wait. You work when work needs doing, and you wait for stories to unfold.
Let’s now extrapolate even further. The desire to find friends for life right away is a manifestation of a deeper problem: the desire, no, the expectation to be perfect. Hence, to live at peace, give yourself space to be incomplete – not everything is a problem, and most problems can be solved by deciding they aren’t. Such is the duality of existence.
2. Don’t follow the crowd
I have strong opinions on identity. For one, labelling yourself limits your options, which is bad; however, establishing constraints simplifies your life. If you’re a gym guy, it is indeed easier to work out—but if you’re a gym guy, you may never become a martial arts guy.
One identity I find harmful is that of a typical student. I’m not talking about students in the sense of learning, humility, or dedication; I’m talking about university life and the typical student. They are horrible at discipline and organization. Furthermore, they enjoy living on the edge, only surviving thanks to coffee. Finally, despite brutal mismanagement, they defy the odds and seem to be making decent progress.
For large parts of the first semester, I fell for that trap and lived miserably as a result. As it turns out, having no routine is actually horrible for your sanity, performance and health. It makes more sense to keep your rhythm. But again, don’t expect to figure out your routine immediately–it took me an entire semester for me.
Let’s continue discussing identity. Don’t fall for the learning-in-the-library-with-a-coffee aesthetic. Not everyone should study in the library, especially not if it is solely to feel like a student. I understand that many are desperate to latch onto an identity, because that’s a part of being young, yet I still argue that living by a typical student’s mantra hardly proves useful. It is still better to find your way. (In other words, go outside.) Let me put it this way: what personality do you have if you begin to embody the mediocre student? Aren’t you giving up control? That radiates side character energy.
Talking of control, saying ‘no’ will help you to stay true to yourself. You don’t need to participate in any extra stuff – if you don’t want to attend a workshop or go out with your classmates, why should you? You, of course, can, and if you’re introverted, you should – before I built social skills, I too considered myself ‘introverted.’ But again, there are so many options and so little life. Hence, everything you do is a compromise – to live is to prioritise.
3. Talk
I used to fear making phone calls. At one point, I was even scared of emails. But as it turns out, annoying people is necessary. Indeed, you need to annoy the hell out of people. You have to tell people exactly what you want. At the end of your life, no one will look at you and say, ‘Well, he never bothered anyone.’ No. They will look at who you were and what you achieved.
Get out of your high school mentality! What do you think a group chat is for? Just ask and stop worrying and overthinking it. It is always faster to ask than it is to overthink.
Guess what: there are several fields of study dedicated to communication. Marketing, journalism, and psychology study how people deliver and receive messages. Philosophy, philology, poetry, and literature study the nature of ideas. Linguistics studies the fabric of language. Telecommunication engineering researches how we can send messages over long distances. On a more fundamental level, computer science studies information – the very essence of communication. Indeed, there is a strong case to be made that math describes the universe, and description is the purpose of language. The mother of all sciences, theology, studies God’s message. The bible tells the story of Jesus and the prophets before him, and even the word prophet stems from ‘to tell.’
The first thing kids learn at school is reading and writing – that’s communication.
Communication is at the very fabric of existence. Even if humans did not invent language and complex ideas, cells would continue communicating using hormones, ions, and electrical signals. Most organisms also communicate using pheromones—that’s why we say people ‘have chemistry.’ A significant part of falling in love stems from matching pheromones.
By refusing to communicate, you are overriding the foundation of human progress—communication. Progress, motion, and communication are, at the core, the same, for they are the manifestation of change. Life has sped up significantly because modern communication is so effective. Use it.
By the way, I doubt you’d be meek if you had more confidence. Before I became social, people used to think I was introverted, had autism, and was asexual.
Clarity beats politeness—and silence rarely gets what it wants. History can be summarized as people meeting in rooms and deciding things. Guess what – they talk as they make decisions. If you stay silent, you will remain eternally invisible.
To give a very concrete example, ask for certificates for everything! I even asked for certificates for things that happened years ago (and sometimes I called instead of writing emails). I used to think certificates were shallow and only skills mattered, but since you don’t live alone, certificates matter. Today, I successfully negotiated an exam to be written a few weeks later. I also often ask for things where I know I will almost certainly get rejected. For example, we have a programming course at university worth three hundred hours, and I asked whether I could skip it because I had been programming for three years. The professor rejected my suggestion, but I don’t regret asking. You can also visit many places without asking. Did you know you can go to the doctor without an appointment? I want to give you a final example. A few weeks ago, I was automatically rejected by a big company because I applied too late. So, I wrote an email and got accepted. No, actually, I will give you one more example! When I’m at university and hear something that sounds familiar, I ask what they study. Humans are supposed to be talking. At university, I’m also very vocal during the lectures. In a ninety-minute lecture, I get to speak around ten times. I ask stupid questions all the time, and sometimes I stutter heavily. But I don’t care. Normal people fear being judged, but everyone already knows me; for them, it’s just the way of life.
So, for heaven's sake, tell people what you want!
Okay, I can’t stop giving examples, so here’s another one. Someone I know thought about switching to psychology while studying something else. Because I’m a decent strategic thinker, she asked me for advice. I came up with a diagnosis immediately: ‘The grass is always greener.’ To test my diagnosis, I prescribed her to write an email to the psychology department. She should ask for the schedule so that she can visit the lectures and decide whether it matches her expectations. She never wrote the email, but since then, she stopped complaining. The principle remains the same. There’s often just one email separating you from your dreams. One email. Unbelievable.
4. Be precise in your calculations
Now that we’ve started discussing strategic thought, I want to dive deeply into one example. Everyone has heard it, yet few have executed it: spend money to save time. I decided to be part of the percent that executes what they learn. If something saves me an hour, I will pay for it.
How things are
The solution
As a visionary, I have to think big. By spending a couple of euros, I live two hours a day longer, which compounds to seven years.
6 €/day × 365 days/year × 60 years equals 131.400€.
80 years / 24 hours equals 3.33 years/hour.
3.33 years/hour × 2 hours equals 6.66 years.
That means I buy a year of life for 19.700€. Would you pay 19.700€ for a year of life? I would. I make no compromise: If I could buy years, I would dedicate my entire life to ensuring that I buy more time than I spend. Still, this equation doesn’t capture all: I’m saving time in the most productive part of the day, at the most valuable chapter of my life: my youth.
Let me zoom out a bit. If I were to buy everything that saves me significant amounts of time or thoughts, I would not spend more than an additional thousand euros per semester. Tools, food, courses, books, and tutoring don’t cost as much money as they do in emotions.
I value my time at 50€ per hour. I could start working as a programmer and earn that exact salary. For comparison, the average person’s time is 25€ per hour. Because I’m me, I could easily justify valuing my time at 100€ per hour. Once again, remove your emotions; estimating the value of your hour has nothing to do with audacity or humility; it is just math. Once you value your time at fifty euros per hour, your life becomes very peaceful – you filter all noise. Your decisions probably value your time at a euro per hour, and that’s no surprise. It's also no surprise that most people are so stressed.
The supreme tactician acts free of emotion. Hence, use math wherever you can. I understand that there’s enormous drag to making purely rational decisions, but there’s also drag to going to the gym for the first time, and there’s drag to asking out a hot blonde. But once you’ve done it, your only regret becomes not doing it earlier. How long until you stop repeating others’ mistakes? I believe that’s the way to attain enlightenment.
5. Be vocal about your pursuits
As you might know, I’m in the 6th semester at just 17 years old.
At least that sounds a lot better than saying, ‘I’m a second-semester student studying fourth-fifths of the sixth semester because both semesters are very similar and I’m very bored.’
But I want you to understand: no one will remember the second sentence. (And those who do probably know you well enough that it won’t matter.) People tend to exaggerate when telling stories since storytelling is a power struggle. They will remember ‘6th semester’ and ’17 years old’ to make themselves look bigger: ‘You won’t believe who I met...!’
Hence, I urge you to control your narratives; you must give people the words to describe you, if you don’t, they will. People have such shallow ideas of who you are that you might as well give them the bit that serves you best. Hence, I encourage you to be a bit more audacious.
Stories conquer hearts.