The Art of Accepting Weak Connection
The Science, Philosophy, and Therapy of Weak Ties
POSITIVE AFFIRMATION
"Some days are fills with close friends and family, other days with loose connections and acquantances.
Today I will find the harmony with both.”
Over 50 years ago, Mark Granovetter published the seminal paper, The Strength of Weak Ties, in the American Journal of Sociology. Last year, a Standford study conducted the largest study ever on proving Granovetter’s point - the weak connections in our lives are most effective in finding new opportunities.
“The experiments randomly varied the prevalence of weak ties in the networks of over 20 million people over a 5-year period, during which 2 billion new ties and 600,000 new jobs were created.
The results provided experimental causal evidence supporting the strength of weak ties and suggested three revisions to the theory.
(paraphrased)
Strength of weak ties was nonlinear. Weaker ties increased job transmission but only to a point, after which there were diminishing marginal returns to tie weakness.
Moderately weak ties (measured by mutual connections) and the weakest ties (measured by interaction intensity) created the most job mobility.
The strength of weak ties varied by industry. Whereas weak ties increased job mobility in more digital industries, strong ties increased job mobility in less digital industries.”
Neutral Productivity
Neutral productivity, the concept that we need to be in equilibrium with accepting how productive we and others can be, would lead us to several comforting conclusions:
Accept the fact that not everyone will be a close friend. There is power in weak connections.
Find a harmonic balance in how many close friends and acquaintances you can sustain naturally.
Sometimes less is more, so don’t force the friendship.
Increase your creativity by tapping into your connections.
Scalability of the number of connections will increase and decrease over the years, depending on where you’re at in your life.
TAKEAWAY
Check-in with yourself on how much energy you expend on sustaining your relationships. Have you been meaning to reach out to someone but things always seem to get in the way? Or perhaps you’re exhausted from doing all the reaching out and need some personal time? There’s no wrong answer except for having no answer. Listen to what your body is telling you and act on it.
Personally, I know I’m a connector and I enjoy it. When I’m at work and walking through the office, I’m finger-gunning everyone I see. But some days when I get home, I want to be left alone on the couch.
SOME HUMOR
Stoicism and Couples Therapy
Seneca’s Letters From a Stoic is proving to be a fascinating read.
“Letters from a Stoic is presumably a collection of 124 letters Seneca sent to his friend Lucilius – then the procurator of Sicily (essentially an official in Ancient Rome) — advising him on how to become a better Stoic.” - Daily Stoic
Roughly 40% into the audiobook, it has been covering the concept and purpose of friendship. One passage that particularly stands out and is relevant to today’s conversation about weak ties revolves around the mindset we have toward the meaning of friendship.
Seneca quotes Epicurus, who wanted friends “for the purpose of having someone to come and sit beside his bed when he is ill or come to his rescue when hard up or thrown into chains.”
But Seneca reversed that, saying make friends, “so that on the contrary we may have someone by whose sickbed we ourselves may sit or whom we may ourselves release when that person is held prisoner by hostile hands.”
If I have a fear of growing old and sick with no one in my life, then it stands to reason others do as well. Therefore, I need to require of myself, how can I be a friend to them if they may be in need one day. Taking that even deeper, I could (and maybe should) attribute all of my self-improvements (aka 1% improvements!) to the purpose of being a better person for the people in my life, for the long term.
Let’s now turn our discussion to what Terrence Real, a contemporary family psychotherapist, might say about the topic of weak ties.
“Our society is built on the idea that we are all created equal, with each person afforded one vote, and one rule of law for everyone. At least that’s how it goes in theory. We all know that equality doesn’t play out anywhere close to perfectly in any human society. And therein lies the rub. Because while we all possess equal and irreducible value, it’s hard to see that equality in everyday life. Whether we allow ourselves to acknowledge it or not, most of us have an exquisite sense, in any setting, of just where we are in the pecking order. And where everyone else is as well. The only problem with that type of judgment is that it’s one hundred percent nonsense.”
- Terrence Real, Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
An important subtle point here is the implications of the words “weak” and “strong” to describe connections. To get to neutral productivity and unlock equilibrium, we need to lose the connotations behind those words and associate equal value to them both. In other words, both weak and strong connections are equally important in our natural lifestyle. We need both to be healthy. If you start to sense judgment in your evaluation of your weak and strong ties, then I suggest reminding yourself of the popular idiom, “Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”
CALL-TO-ACTION
To keep this sustainable, add a task of reaching out to 1-2 people per week. Scroll through your LinkedIn, FB, Twitter, or whatever social lists you have, and send them a note. Simply state you were randomly thinking about them and just wanted to check in on how they’re doing. One or two exchanges are all that’s warranted.