I asked this question to 100 people from 38 different countries and territories.

Why?

My 10-day silent meditation in December gave me an overwhelming love for the world and a passionate desire to spread that love to as many people as possible.

Love is best given and received in positions of vulnerability. Think about it. When riding through the comforts of daily life, do you need love, or is it a nice-to-have?

Alternatively, think about the love you've felt from people at your most vulnerable. Those moments hit different.

None of this explains why I asked this question to 100 people, but I'm getting there.

Creating An Environment To Spread Love

I'm my most authentic self when I'm seeking social discomfort because it strips me of all the walls I've built up internally.

So, I decided to seek some social discomfort and go to public spaces with a poster that said something along the lines of "Free chocolate if you answer 'What matters most to you and why?'"

Talk about vulnerability.

I've had a lot of practice with social experiments, but they're way harder when you're all alone in a city you don't know.

But being vulnerable and authentic at the same time is the best starting condition for spreading love.

Why I Did It This Way

Holding up a sign in the middle of a public area is a little unorthodox, but it offered me a massive advantage.

The people I met were self-selecting. If someone wasn't interested in talking, they just ignored me and moved on. But those who stopped were inherently curious, friendly, and full of energy.

Or they just wanted free chocolate :)

Every city has good people and bad people, but I only got to talk to the good ones because my weird little experiment wouldn't be interesting to those who weren't. Thus, I came away with a great impression of each city I did this in.

The Question Was Only Half Important

There are plenty of questions one could ask. I chose "What matters most to you and why?" because it's the essay prompt for a program I'm applying to, and I want to use the responses as part of my application.

But I could have asked anything thought-provoking and it would have had the same result.

In fact, people's answers weren't that important either, although they were a necessary pre-condition for the experiment. The most important part became the conversations that ensued after hearing people's responses.

Whether it was from asking me why I was doing it, elaborating on their answers, or bonding over our worldviews, the question allowed us to move past small talk and onto deeper conversations.

The resulting connections taught me that exchanging profound thoughts with strangers is effectively an act of spreading love. And voila! A unique way to meet people, have a deep conversation, and understand how people think.

What Did People Say?

To group people's answers into large categories, they would be as follows:

• Family: 41
• Some ideals by which they live (love, happiness, peace, adventure, etc): 23
• Friends: 11
• God: 8
• Money: 5
• Anti-War Sentiments: 4
• Health: 3
• Other/Non-serious answers: 10

The answers that caused me to think the most were the following. I've omitted the "whys" for length:

• "The peace we lost in our homeland due to Iran[ian-backed militias]" -Hassan (Iraq)
• "Leaving people better than I found them" -Stacey (USA)
• "Improving the world by improving myself" -Sophie (Austria)
• "Authenticity" -Paul (Germany)
• "The pursuit of finding the meaning of existence" -Ankur (India)
• "Intellectual intimacy" -Alanna (USA)
• "Before I had a family, all the material successes: money, my job, etc. But since then, nothing matters more than them" -Mohamad (UAE)
• "Seek adversity. Either you'll go out of your way to find adversity or adversity will find you" -Jackson (USA)

More important than the answers were the people I got to meet and the conversations I got to have as a result.

In Cyprus, I met Harry and Rick who were volunteering on their own dime to help refugees newly arriving in the country, Hannah and Anna who were working in Northern Cyprus as Christian missionaries, and Marcos, the highest energy Cypriot I've ever met who single-handedly left me with the most positive opinion of his country.

In Austria, I met Lydia who thought my social experiment was the world's sneakiest missionary tactic and proceeded to talk to me for 20 minutes about faith, Paul whose conversation about authenticity led to us meeting up at a bar later that night, and Sophie who was live on TikTok doing her own interviews and led to one of the best exchanges for both of our projects.

Everywhere I went, I came away with the same feeling:

This city is sick. These people are sick.

Man.

Life is amazing.

Crazy how seeking a little discomfort can make you feel that way every single time.

What Matters Most To Me And Why?

I thought I knew what mattered most to me before starting the experiment. I was certain the most important thing to me was human connection.

It was an ideal that encapsulates many of the most common responses: family, friends, peace, happiness, and more are all rooted in human connection. So is seeking social discomfort.

But as I've traveled, put myself in vulnerable situations, and heard 100 people give their thoughts, I've found that there's a better way to articulate my human connection-centric answer:

Giving and receiving love and exploring both of these acts with people and places that matter to me.

When I'm home, that's with my family and the city that raised me.

When I'm at school, that's with my friends and the organizations that shaped me.

And when I'm traveling that's with the people and cultures that can broaden my horizons and offer me an opportunity to connect with humanity in a pure, authentic way.

Life is always changing so who knows? Maybe I'll further modify my answer as I move through the next chapters. But as things evolve, one thing is for certain.

I'll keep trying to spread the love and good vibes wherever my journey takes me.

:)