Understanding the importance of events and consequences

Alright, so now you are in on the secret. Everything is push and pull. People just toss data out there and hope it hits something. And if you’ve also realized that that is the most effective approach toward growth and development, kudos to you. If you haven’t, well, we are about to go into a little story time.

I currently live in Uppsala, Sweden, and for quite a while, I thought I was the only person from Nepal who lived here. Now, Uppsala is a big town by Swedish standards and a lot of students from all over the world live here as well. But, even if Nepalese people lived here, how would I have known them? Something that specific is very hard to find, even in this day and age. But then, the most remarkable set of coincidences (some may even say events, eh?) happened, which brought me into contact with other people from Nepal. I only realized just how remarkable they were once I backtracked through all of them.

I had just recently gotten a job offer (the one that I currently have) in Stockholm and I was getting on the train to Stockholm to iron out the details. On the train, I met a friend of mine with whom I collaborate on projects at the student union in Uppsala. In fact, we had met just the other day to discuss those projects. I saw him and sat down next to him, and I saw that he was with two other friends. One of them was a teaching assistant on a project that I had to submit the very next day. That was cool, but that wasn’t even the most important event that happened on the train. His other friend and I got to talking and, through him, I got the number of another Nepalese person who was also living in Uppsala. What kismet! Through that person, I have actually managed to find almost a dozen others who live in the same town as me, who have come on the same journey.

So, here’s the thing: I skipped to the end of this story because, in a way, that’s how we live our lives, trying to finish something up and get to the end of the story to begin a new one. It is how we read, how we consume content, and basically, how we behave socially. But, over time, I contemplated the story, and I thought back to the set of events that had brought me up to that point, so let’s backtrack (and I promise there is a satisfying conclusion to this that isn’t just me bragging about my luck):

• I met my friend who introduced me to his friend on the student union developer team
• I joined that team to try and make some new friends in Uppsala, but the information for that came from a WhatsApp group that I joined based on a recommendation from another friend from my faculty
• I became friends with him before we even joined the faculty because we ended up on a student nation tour (look up Uppsala student nations for a fun and interesting read)
• I joined that tour because of the recommendation that I got on my first day in Uppsala during my orientation