Points, Dots & The Lines We Draw

Dear Student/Young Professional,

Today I write to you on a few points, some connecting dots & the eventual trail they leave behind, lines.

In basic geometry, we are taught that a point is represented by a dot. It is used to tell an exact location in space, and it does not have any length, width or height of itself. It has no size, just potential.

A line has an infinite number of points. It is the result of connected points.

We walk through life independent yet dependent on everything and everyone else. The term self-made doesn’t even refer to becoming successful without people. It might hold a claim to not being helped by people on your way up, but anything that is built requires people, and I must point out quite clearly, people other than yourself!

A line is defined by points and always starts with a point, but many points never become lines.

In 2020, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a government advisory on the use of face masks. I remember thinking to myself every time I entered any building with other people “it takes only one non-compliant infected person to mess up this plan”. The thing was that face masks alone couldn’t protect anyone from the virus. It was simply a mechanism for reducing its spread and for this to work, everyone needed to comply.

You can scarcely sustain anything alone. It is important to appreciate and develop yourself, but you need to understand that nothing lasting is hatched in isolation. You’ll need to work and interact with other people.

Our interactions can simply be summarized as points, dots and lines. Every interaction leaves a point. This point eventually defines the line drawn going forward in any relationship. Some lines would never be drawn simply because of the point inscribed upon the first interaction. Other points would yield more points and eventually produce mutually beneficial lines. Ultimately, we may be unable to see where all the lines lead, but we can control the points we make!

Most of life would be defined by the points we leave. Not all points are verbal, some would be non-verbal, connecting in our absence, among people we’ve never met. We can only learn about some of these connections in retrospect, reflecting on the resultant lines of such interactions.

Now, take a moment to ponder on the lines that never connect in our absence because of the negative points we left and the resultant lines we never see.

Manage your points honourably, hope that the dots align nicely and in the end, may the lines be in your favour

Till next time

Yours sincerely,

Simon Ikpebe