Over the past few months, I have been writing a weekly newsletter in which I share my five favorite songs of the week.
However, I try to avoid selecting songs that only I would like. The songs I choose need to be ones that I enjoy and that I think others might like too. Because of this, I spend a lot of time contemplating what people like in general and, more specifically, why people like what they like.
This is a nearly impossible task. There are an infinite number of factors that might influence a person's tastes, such as genetics, experience, culture, social influence, values, beliefs, or emotions.
Yet, there is one factor that is often overlooked and may be the most important: exposure.
When I was in high school, I took an AP Psych class. Very little of that class consciously stands out in my mind, but there was one particular lesson that always stuck with me. In a lesson on attraction, we learned why people end up with their significant others (boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, etc.). The number one factor listed in the lesson was proximity to that person.
When the book mentioned proximity, it was not referring to a certain emotional closeness to their partner, but rather a literal physical closeness. In other words, how close do they live to that person?
Though the world is becoming more digitally connected, there is still a strong amount of truth to this analysis. There's a reason I don't have a girlfriend in Bangladesh or Finland. It might be easier than ever (in terms of the history of the world) to meet a woman online from either of those places, but I'm still more likely to date someone in Philadelphia where I live.
In order to like something (or someone), you need to be exposed to it first. There are approximately 4 billion women in the world. I won't meet even 1% of those women in my lifetime. Therefore, I won't like 99% of women in the world.
The same logic applies to all sorts of things: songs, foods, books, movies, places traveled, and so on. We simply won't be exposed to most things, so we won't ever have a chance to like them.
When you think about it through this lens, it makes you appreciate the things you love a little bit more. I wrote a recap of my favorite albums from Q1 of this year, and in the recap, I mentioned that I listened to 145 albums in the first three months of the year, an average of more than one album per day. Yet, despite the fact that I diligently listened to 145 albums, there were thousands that I did not get a chance to listen to.
But instead of focusing on all the things that we won't be exposed to in our lives, we should concentrate on the things that we will be exposed to—the people, places, and things that will feel as if they were made just for us. You still might not have discovered your favorite song of all time, and that alone is worth being excited about.
Remember: it's nothing short of a miracle when we find something we genuinely love.
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Over the past few months, I have been writing a weekly newsletter in which I share my five favorite songs of the week.
However, I try to avoid selecting songs that only I would like. The songs I choose need to be ones that I enjoy and that I think others might like too. Because of this, I spend a lot of time contemplating what people like in general and, more specifically, why people like what they like.
This is a nearly impossible task. There are an infinite number of factors that might influence a person's tastes, such as genetics, experience, culture, social influence, values, beliefs, or emotions.
Yet, there is one factor that is often overlooked and may be the most important: exposure.
When I was in high school, I took an AP Psych class. Very little of that class consciously stands out in my mind, but there was one particular lesson that always stuck with me. In a lesson on attraction, we learned why people end up with their significant others (boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, etc.). The number one factor listed in the lesson was proximity to that person.
When the book mentioned proximity, it was not referring to a certain emotional closeness to their partner, but rather a literal physical closeness. In other words, how close do they live to that person?
Though the world is becoming more digitally connected, there is still a strong amount of truth to this analysis. There's a reason I don't have a girlfriend in Bangladesh or Finland. It might be easier than ever (in terms of the history of the world) to meet a woman online from either of those places, but I'm still more likely to date someone in Philadelphia where I live.
In order to like something (or someone), you need to be exposed to it first. There are approximately 4 billion women in the world. I won't meet even 1% of those women in my lifetime. Therefore, I won't like 99% of women in the world.
The same logic applies to all sorts of things: songs, foods, books, movies, places traveled, and so on. We simply won't be exposed to most things, so we won't ever have a chance to like them.
When you think about it through this lens, it makes you appreciate the things you love a little bit more. I wrote a recap of my favorite albums from Q1 of this year, and in the recap, I mentioned that I listened to 145 albums in the first three months of the year, an average of more than one album per day. Yet, despite the fact that I diligently listened to 145 albums, there were thousands that I did not get a chance to listen to.
But instead of focusing on all the things that we won't be exposed to in our lives, we should concentrate on the things that we will be exposed to—the people, places, and things that will feel as if they were made just for us. You still might not have discovered your favorite song of all time, and that alone is worth being excited about.
Remember: it's nothing short of a miracle when we find something we genuinely love.
