One Thing to Search for

I don’t want to tell you what to do. I barely know anything so listening to me might not be in your best interests. I only ask that you consider my not so novel idea to make 2020 more enriching to yourself and others. What is this not so well-kept secret that you should revisit if it’s lacking in your life? The necessity of community.


"One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone." Shannon L. Alder 

I don’t have a community in Seoul. One reason is because I just moved there in September and another is that I haven’t put in the necessary effort to form stronger bonds and feel like I belong in Korea. Where did I love living most? Nakhon Si Thammarat. Is it a coincidence that that’s where I felt most a part of a community of younger teachers who worked, played, partied and travelled together? We all lived roughly in the same neighbourhood, played sports together, ate outstanding Thai food together, explored beaches and waterfalls together, shared (mostly) the same language and found a family outside of the borders of our home country. Some of my closest friends today are those I met while living in Thailand. Similarly, even though my thoughts on New Zealand are clear, one positive was that we all lived together and worked on the same mountain. There was a sense of comradery and friendship. In Warsaw, I lived with three great people who I still talk with to this day and in Shanghai, I had a community of people to play lacrosse with. My question to you is, have you found your community?

Being a part of a community can be anything from a book club, Rotary meetings, religious assembly, Couchsurfing meetups, volunteering at local hospital, trivia night or cross-country skiing with a local club. Your community does not even need to be in person. Some people have specific Facebook groups for whatever interests them, people who game online together, podcast communities or being a part of a YouTube channel’s community.  Having a community can help define your identity and give your life more purpose. A community I will be attempting to join in Seoul is playing pick up basketball on Sundays. Eventually, I would get to know the people who play each Sunday and with a certain amount of effort, become friends with those people at some level. Being part of a community also means other people count on you and notice if you are missing after an event or two. Knowing your absence will be noticed is for some reason, comforting and a reason to get out of bed and engage with your selected community.

I have noticed while reading and listening to podcasts that having a community and people who have known you for more than a few days is essential part of our happiness and humanity. I may or may not have been looking up articles last night about how to know when it is time to cut back on travelling and stay in one place longer term. The majority of the articles cited wanting to be  part of a community as a reason for scaling back their travel. Meeting random people on the road is great because you are meeting people you would not ordinarily meet in real life but at some point, that person will leave and you will be left by yourself. Not so if you have a community. If you have lived somewhere for more than a few years and have embraced making connections and joining different communities, you are partaking in something that is missing in my life and you should be proud of the life that you have been building.

If for some reason you don’t fully believe your life can be improved with greater community and social interactions, science is here to back me up. Julianne Holt-Lundstad from Brigham Young University notes that, “Being connected to others is widely considered a fundamental human need-crucial to both well-being and survival.” She goes on to say that, “There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk of premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators.” 

The UK even has a minister of loneliness. Being alone can kill you so put some pants on and meet and help other human beings. According to Emily Smith, the author of The Power of Meaning, life has 4 pillars of meaning.

1-Belonging

People want to feel like there are appreciated, are making the world a better place and feel like they belong to a certain group, culture or city. Find a place or people to belong to.

2-Purpose

Having a reason to wake up and be productive is an important part of being human. Believe that your job is making a difference and is aligned to what you believe in is right is essential.

3-Storytelling

Having experiences and telling others how we overcame an obstacle or giving advice to others are elements of storytelling. People love to be told stories. Try not to have a life without a story or two.

4-Transcendence

Experiencing more than normal everyday activities; going beyond usual limits.

Three tips to finding a community according to caringmagazine.org is become a regular at a local shop or restaurant. Get to know the names of the people who work there and you will become familiar with staff and customers. Eventually it will feel ‘yours’. Join a group that you care about such as sports, politics or religion. Finally, find a cause you believe in and do whatever you can to improve the situation.

To summarize my thoughts, if you feel that your life is missing something, look at different ways to connect with the community around you. It could be a simple as shoveling your neighbour’s driveway, bringing an elderly person vegetables from your garden, donating clothes or food, fundraising for a new playground, giving your time or money to associations you support, or by trying to make the community that you live in safer. I just saved your life. You can thank me at your next community meetup.


"A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert."  

Andrew Carnagie 

Sources

https://www.sciencealert.com/widespread-loneliness-is-killing-people-and-we-need-to-start-taking-this-seriously

https://caringmagazine.org/find-new-community/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/catching-homelessness/201811/loneliness-kills

TedTalk on how one man learned how to find a community

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Wxhm46RbU