Connecting the dots is the closest way for me to describe street smarts. Of trying to find our way while living everyday life. Trying to make something a little bit better than the day before. Some people have it. A lot of people don’t. It took me many years after graduating college to acquire more street smarts.
Every day, a lot of information flows into our life. Some of it intentional. Much of it random. Most of it unimportant to our goals. A few hidden gems appear from time to time that are out of range of our focus that causes us to miss them.
It fascinates me how long it takes, for me, to learn things. I may hear something that would be helpful yet ignore it as being unimportant. Then the idea pops up again in a different place or conversation and I still miss it. It could be a year later that, with a little more perspective and knowledge, that same thought now seems valuable or relevant.
Connecting the dots is an exercise in mountain climbing. Of finding the next piece to hold on to and incorporate into your climb to keep moving. Finding a solid piece that would support your weight, with minimal risk, to keep moving safely.
In life, safe may not always provide the best route to moving forward. The dots you connect may take you down paths that you know little about. They seem risky only because you have never experienced them. Later, after they become common in your life, they can offer so much to achieving the direction you seek. Once you have experienced them, they are more safer than we first thought.
I find that people who have street smarts connect the dots with ease. They connect “a” with “g” and all of sudden they reach the number “3”. Yes, life can be that confusing as what I just wrote. For the person with street smarts they did not see “a” and “g” but rather a one and a two which logically led them to the result of three. For most of us, “a” and “g” appeared unrelated because we could not connect the same dots.
There are always dots you can connect to move forward in your life. To help provide a course correction or better way when things appear stalled.
The hard part is wanting to find them. Wanting to see them. Even if they first appear as a soap bubble that rapidly disappears into the air the first time we try.