Single Point of Failure

There is a rule in information technology, but I think it is actually re-inventing a reinvention of a wheel. The rule is never to have a single point of failure. It's an incredibly useful rule for technological systems. It's not exactly about having backups for failures, it's about deriving information from different sources so that, if there is a failure, there isn't a catastrophic event that threatens the life of the system.

This rule is derived from information technology, but it really came from human life and history. They just reinvented the wheel. Now I'm reinventing the reinvention by placing it back in the hands of humanity. At any point in a person's life, there should never be a single psychological point of failure. Yet too often, we try to make this a rule in our lives. We try to derive self-worth from one source: a passion, another person, a calling, etc. It even works with a spread of friends. If all of your friends bring out the same side of you, then what is the point? I have a wide breadth of friends who bring out different sides of me and it is the first time I've had that for a long time. I forgot what it was like to hang out with different people, have different experiences and see different sides of myself.

I'm still searching for myself. This used to be a source of annoyance. I revel in it now. I've done things in the past year that I would have scoffed at if you had told me about it only 6 months ago. The biggest reason I have is because of the friends I've made in that span, and because I don't have a single point of failure for my own psyche anymore.