The People Collector
I was talking to a fellow student, on campus the other day when the subject of grades came up. Through a lot of effective studying, hard work and effort, I've been a member of what they call: 'The 4.0 Club.' These are students who have managed multiple "A" Grades making the Presidents List, thus earning a 4.0 for the semester.
The student I was talking to is ambitious and always surrounds himself with people who are doing positive thing with their lives and in the lives of others. So we're talking about putting shoulder to the wheel to get our course assignments done, and I was sharing not only my study tips, but also some lessons I've learned in life.
What Is The Value Of A Person?
I have a reputation here as an honest man which for some reason is seen as a rarity. They say I have some wisdom (who knows) and like that I'm discreet when discussing personal matters.
Therefore people come to me for advice all the time knowing I won't share their business as I don't believe in gossiping about others. When someone shares their heart with you, that's serious business, and that's exactly how I treat it when someone has a sit-down with me.
I get a lot of: "You're the only one that will tell the truth" and that's true, but always with tact and diplomacy, when offering my thoughts. The point is to always place the dignity of the person at the center of everything I do.
So you have all that, right? Here, I'm considered a living curio who ofttimes feels like that old man we read about in tales living in a cave high above the city where people come to for advice.
Then he drops the bombshell: "I like talking to you." I asked why. "You're useful to me."
It stopped me in my tracks. "You're useful to me." It was so reductive and disrespectful of my time, attention and above all my value and consideration for others. I responded "excuse me? Useful? What do you mean?"
He went on to say that he was "a people collector" and that he only talks to those who can be useful to him in his battle to get ahead in life. Digging himself deeper with every word, it turns out he'd looked me up when he kept seeing my name on the Presidents List and after hearing about my reputation. He continued: "Once I've extracted value from them, I move on."
"I only talk to 4.0s, and you're a 4.0. Wow. He judges people by their semester GPA...
Of course I laid right into him and told him that he came of as some kind of parasite, a mosquito sucking the blood out of its host before moving on.
Words matter. If he'd said that he enjoyed chatting with me because I was selfless and had compassion for others and that he felt he could learn something from me, that would have been one thing. But to be "collected" for being "useful" was insulting, and you can bet I let him know that.
Trying to turn this into a teachable moment I explained that unlike him I talked with everybody as we all have something we can teach others. Limiting your interactions to only those with a 4.0 GPA makes for a narrow-minded view of the world. And what if the 4.0 student cheated his way onto the list? (many do) You're collecting a faux person who will do you no good in the grand scheme of things.
How do you know the value of a person if you won't interact with them based on some numerical matrix? You don't.
I told him I don't view people the way he did. That I didn't want to be "collected" and ended our conversations right there and then. How rude of this guy. But that's the milieu that he lives in.
Turns out everyone he knows has this ruthless, money-grubbing, dog-eat-dog manner of getting ahead. People are seen like a wad of toilet paper to clean their backside and then be flushed down the toilet once no longer necessary.
Building Positive Realtionships and Leaving a Legacy To Be Proud Of
That's not a good way to live. And if you believe in the creator, an afterlife and Judgment Day as I do, you're not getting into Heaven with that exploitative mindset. I don't know about you, but I want my name to appear in The Book Of Life.
And this is one of the reasons why I have long conversations with people much as Joe Rogan does. You can't get to know an individual through a short text. Only through sitting down letting them talk and being willing to actually listen, will you get to the heart of the issue (and the man himself).
I'm not a "people collector" and never will be. What I do recognize is the potential that we all have to enrich the lives of others. Many of us will have an average lifespan of roughly 80 trips around the Sun. You don't want to spend that time using people.
Let's build lives together where we enrich each other with the knowledge and wisdom the we each posses. That's the kind of legacy that I want to leave behind.
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