Belonging to a community is a basic human need.

Belonging to a community is a basic human need. People can’t go through life solely on their own, they need human interaction. Because of recent traumas, such as school shootings and political division, isolating oneself in order to avoid contact with others may seem to be the solution, but it is not. We must revive ourselves through healing together, not apart. If we separate ourselves from growing and collaborating with others, we will fail to progress. We are social beings who need others in order to fully live as human beings. Rediscovering our sense of community begins with empathy, being present, engaging with others and respecting human dignity.

This holds especially true when dealing with neighbors. Our community has lost its ability to “agree to disagree”. People have become absolutely vitriolic if anyone does not 100% agree with them.

Technology, which should be connecting community members, seems to be isolating us from one another. Social media allows us to post things most people would not have the nerve to say in face-to-face conversations.

It is easier to scream over the phone at whoever answers than to knock on a neighbor’s door and have a polite conversation. When we are not bound to wholesome friends and good community, we become more focused on being self-serving.

Community holds us accountable for our actions and allows us to look outward rather than in. The human experience of personal interaction conveys emotions far beyond a phone call, social media post, or an email. Most people are more willing to reason in person. Technology has stripped that from our communications.

Nowadays, we want instant gratification, immediate response, problems fixed immediately and for solutions to be resolved - all without getting involved. People want to complain about a lot of things, but wish to remain anonymous and don’t want any direct involvement. We are always in such a state of ‘busyness’ that we lose our sense of awareness, our ability to establish basic personal connections to others. We’ve become numb to human feelings. We need to rediscover love, compassion, and compromise. Power off the phone, TV, laptop and look around. Stop using your computer and the internet to complain. We are alive and there are people that need us. So, let’s start taking responsibility, ownership and rediscover what a “community” really means.

At times it seems overwhelming - how do we start fixing the problem? How do we start building back our sense of community? As with any large problem, the solution lies in breaking down the problem into smaller bits. You don't have to clean up the ocean, just start with the puddle down the street. Small actions when aggregated, manifest in a movement. Being friendly is contagious. I’m happy to live here and enjoy meeting and talking with happy friendly people. But it seems like there are more really angry people these days. We can’t allow them to negatively impact our sense of community.