Opposites Attract

Something that I've been thinking about lately is about how opposite behaviors attract. Or maybe it's not that they attract, but that it's hard to come to a decision on which behavior it actually is.

For instance, after the conference that I just went to, I added a whole bunch of people I had just met to my Linked-In profile. And by people I just met, I mean famous, high-profile, leading industry members. Let me start off by saying that I'm pretty new to this whole networking thing. In fact, I'm so inexperienced that I had to contact my ex-boyfriend and ask him for networking advice (he owns his own startup company). So I was only acting here out of the advice from a few people I had asked.

What happened was this: my profile got lots of views, but only a few people actually added me back. This got me thinking-- were my actions stupid, or ballsy? On the one hand, maybe it was stupid. I had only met them one time, I'm just starting out in my career, and I haven't worked with any of them yet. Why should I be requesting them as business contacts? On the other hand, maybe it was ballsy. Maybe other people are too afraid to add them on Linked-In after only meeting them once. Maybe they liked that I was confident enough to try it. Since I don't know why the people didn't add me back, there's no way for me to tell. Stupid? Or ballsy. Stupid? Or ballsy.

This got me thinking about something my mom had asked me about many years ago:

Mom: Veronica, is it better to be brilliant? Or ridiculous. In my opinion it's much better to be ridiculous.

Brilliant? Or ridiculous. Isn't it both, though? Aren't the most brilliant ideas the ones that are also ridiculous?

For instance, this brings to mind a time when I was a freshman in college. I had quartet rehearsal, but there were no open rooms in the music building in which we could practice. How did the quartet leader solve this problem? He had us rehearse in the building's elevator. An idea so ridiculous that it was brilliant. And so brilliant that it was ridiculous.

Who knows. Maybe this is another thing where the one you pick has to do with your perspective. What do you all think?