My -10 & +20 Rule : How the Community Evolves

Life is too short to spend time with people who deplete you.

It's also too abundant to not spend time with those who fuel you.

Fortunately, the world is so big and full of so many diverse people, that you can keep meeting & adding new folks into your world, while holding on to most of the ones you've already known, and shedding some who you mutually don't align with any more.

There's a motto i've been finding a lot of clarity in since 2024 - "Do Less. Do Better. Know Why". This extends to people also. Intentionally subtracting (or being subtracted by) ~10% of all the people I know in a given year is something I find healthy and liberating. It cleans out the old, and makes way for the new. With some people, interests diverge, values differ, priorities change, paths fork, without explanation. And that's perfectly okay!

In parallel, staying open to new people of all types and beliefs is something I find one of the great joys of living. One of my dreams is to meet 1 Million people in my lifetime. My guess is i've met around ~10,000 people in my lifetime of 34 years so far. So that means i'd have to meet 45 new people a day for the next 60 years of my life assuming i lived to 94 :)

Not exactly practical, but it's the mindset of it that counts .... always staying open and welcoming of new people. For now, I design for it as a +20% rule to my community and network. If i can grow the sum of all my people by a chunky 20% each year, i'm content.

There's 4 kinds of people in particular who fall into my intentional -10% subtraction pool :

1. Freeloaders - the ones who never reach for the bill. Never bring a gift. Never host.

2. Social climbers - how can you have no friends? Like zero. Something's quite sociopathic about these people who plot and make moves within your social circles. It's typically quite one-way extractive

3. Flakes - always committing to plans, never showing up. And always apologising with some dumb excuse. I find it blatant disrespect of my time & have no space for it

4. Energy vampires - they stand around, sad, morose, spewing their negativity. Dementor energy.

Sometimes its obvious, and sometimes it takes a bit longer to really identify when someone is one of these. I'm now in the zone of shamelessly and proudly calling it out when i see one, and subtracting away.