It seems the most meaningful things are the hardest to describe. All of the best experiences in my life have been severely undersold. Horn Entrepreneurship, University Innovation Fellows, Seth Godin’s Tribal Gathering, BIF 2017 are the ones that come to mind.
These events and experiences changed me. They connected me with like-minded individuals and gave me a tremendous sense of purpose. But the websites never seem to capture this magic. “Words can’t do it justice” is something you hear a lot, but words can do a lot of justice to a lot of things.
My new hunch is that perhaps it’s so hard to explain these experiences because we never had them growing up. Before I participated in Horn Entrepreneurship’s network of motivated creatives, I had no concept for what it felt like to be part of a professional community. Before I went to the University Innovation Fellows meet up I had no idea how powerful it would be to meet hundreds of change-makers on other campuses across country.
I knew what it felt like to go to basketball camp. It felt fun and competitive, but it didn’t leave me a deep sense of purpose or a community to help me succeed. I knew what it felt like to have a good math teacher, but there was no communal magic.
Perhaps what’s missing from school is the communal magic. The shared sense of purpose and community that is the thread running through all my most life-changing experiences, but such a nebulous idea is tough to describe. It’s especially hard to describe when nothing else in our lives has felt the same way.
Maybe I’m missing the mark. Here I go trying to describe a life-changing event and I’ve fallen short just like the websites of so many.
So what is there to do? Take the risk. Step out a limb and try something new. You never know where your next life-changing gem might be hiding.