Our society is speeding up, people are constantly busy. Even when people aren’t working they are on the phone, texting, surfing the Internet, working a second job, taking care of children and elderly family members – just trying to survive.
They don’t have automatic opportunities built in to form community. Today, creating a sense of community is something that many people suffer from – they are feeling the lack of community, like they don’t really belong anywhere. In each neighborhood, fewer people know their neighbors and everyone is busy and figures someone else will step in and help. It is so rare that it is considered “positive news worthy” and talked over when community steps up or individuals help strangers vs. people in their own family or group.
Whole events like “National Night Out” have been created just to give structure and focus to encourage people to step out of their house and make time to get to know their direct neighbors and the people in their community better.
A whole generation, and especially the new generation just growing up now, don’t have the basic skills to create “community.” They haven’t lived in close knit communities and were not taught the subtle and unspoken skills that are the cornerstone that makes up the “building community” basic skills. Creating a sense of community for ourselves and others is something that happens from many small actions over time and requires you to step outside of your immediate concerns, participate and be available to spend time with and get to know others with no expectation of benefit to you.
In 2012, I discovered a blog post with a picture that spoke to me about the basics of how to actually create this feeling if “community” I’d been searching for in my life. Some kind person who actually knew how to create the feeling of “community” wrote down some basics for those of us who were clueless where to begin. They suggested:
How to Build a Community
Turn off your TV
Leave your house
Know your neighbors
Look up when you are walking
Greet people
Sit on your stoop
Plant flowers
Use your library
Play together
Buy from local merchants
Share what you have
Help a lost dog
Take children to the park
Garden together
Support neighborhood schools
Fix it even if you didn’t break it
Have potlucks
Honor elders
Pick up litter
Read stories aloud
Dance in the street
Talk to the mail carrier
Listen to the birds
Put up a swing
Help carry something heavy
Barter for your goods
Start a tradition
Ask a question
Hire neighborhood young people for odd jobs
Organize a block party
Bake extra and share
Ask for help when you need it
Open your shades
Sing together
Share your skills
Take back the night
Turn up the music
Turn down the music
Listen before you react to anger
Mediate a conflict
Seek to understand
Learn from new and uncomfortable angles
Know that no one is silent though many are not heard
Work to change this
Let this list be the beginning of your own efforts to improve the world, right in your own little community. The small daily acts that you do can create a wave of positive change and inspire others to create this sense of “community” along with you.
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Great information, Inthirani! And nicely laid out. Thanks for posting!