“Ehn, I don’t need anyone.”
“I’m not a people person.”
“Nobody is really your friend in this life.”
“I don’t like making friends.”
“People are hard to trust.”
We’ve all heard these lines. Maybe you’ve even said them yourself. And we say these things under the umbrella of ‘protecting our peace’. We use these statements to justify staying in our own little shells, convinced that if we just work hard enough and stay quiet enough, we’ll still make it one day.
But let’s be honest for a second. Being a lone ranger in a country like Russia is a very dangerous game.
The world we live in today definitely rewards hard work. You need value, you need skills, you need a degree, and you need to know your stuff. But value alone isn’t always enough to open the heavy doors. You also need tangible relationships. Think of some friendships not just as chilling spots, but as literal ladders to success.
Recently, I started asking a few of my acquaintances how they actually landed their current roles. I was expecting stories about grueling LinkedIn applications and cold emails. Instead, almost everyone said the same things: “A friend told me about the opportunity,” “Someone recommended me,” or “I knew a guy who knew a guy.”
As a foreigner, community isn’t a luxury for us, but a survival kit.
When you’re living within a system that wasn’t built for you, you cannot afford to be an island. Whether it’s a church group, a mosque community, or just a circle of friends with the same drive as you, you need people to rub minds with. You need people who can see the blind spots in your plans before you trip over them.
Even having one close family member or a trusted mentor to vent to can be the difference between a breakthrough and a breakdown.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But I’ve had terrible experiences with people.”
Yes, we’ve all had terrible experiences. We’ve all trusted the wrong person or had a “friend” show their true colors when things got real. But using one bad experience to stop making connections is like refusing to eat because you once had food poisoning. You’re only starving yourself of the opportunities that come through people.
The truth is, your next big move probably won’t come from a job board. It will come from a conversation. It will come from someone saying, “I know someone who can do this perfectly,” while they’re having tea.
So, this week, try to step out of the shadows. Reach out to that acquaintance. Go to that community gathering. Say yes to the coffee invite from that person that has been friendly to you.
Don’t let the fear of a few bad apples keep you from all the possible blessings. You’ve already done the hard work of moving across the world and building a life in a new country, so don’t make it harder by trying to carry the whole world on your shoulders alone. Independence is good, but interdependence is where the real growth happens.
Like someone once said, we go fast if we go alone, but we go far if we go together.
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