Do you have a tight-knit group of positive, loving friends that are all helping each other realize their dreams? If not, why not?
In modern society, we live closer to more people than we ever have, yet we tend to feel way more distant from others. Chances are that there are tons of awesomely cool people that are into the same things as you and live right by you that you don’t even no exist. So why don’t you know them? How can we fix this?
What we’re missing most in the world is community, that tribal sense of connection.
Since the beginning of time humans have always lived in a tribe. But ever since the agricultural revolution and the creation of cities, we’ve slowly gone away from our roots. All of a sudden we don’t need to rely on people anymore.
We live in cities surrounded by tons of people we don’t even know. Many people don’t even know their own neighbors.
Our modern world of the internet, television, video games, and big cities where you can disappear has created a ton of people who are extremely socially awkward. And the biggest reason for this problem is because we don’t encourage kids from a young age to be social, we tell them not to talk to strangers.
We need to learn how to be more social, we need to feel a greater sense of community.
Imagine how much better off we would be if everything we did was focused around building relationships, with whatever activity just acting as a means for people with similar interests to connect.
For example, how quickly would a professor’s class grow if he ended each class by saying, “For the last 5 minutes I want you to find someone you don’t know, introduce yourselves, and get to know a little about each other.” By saying this, the teacher is making it socially acceptable and comfortable for you to talk to and get to know your classmates. Think of how many more friends you would make this way.
One of the main reasons people like going to school is because of the relationships that they form with fellow classmates. But forming relationships is always in the background, school—like just about everything— tends to not encourage the forming of relationships NEARLY as much as it could. They instead focus on learning (often) theoretical knowledge about how to live in this world today while neglect to learn about the people around us that are making this world the way it is.
Ever heard the old saying, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know? If you believe this statement (to a certain extent), why don’t schools spend at LEAST a little time focusing on facilitating relationships?
This is one of the reasons why I feel church is so popular among Christians. As a couple of my friends have told me, it’s not so much about the religion, it’s about the relationships. In my extremely limited experience of going to church, the atmosphere is very welcoming to new comers, and is full of happy, growth centered people.
One of the things I liked about one of my experiences at church was that the pastor encouraged everyone to introduce themselves to the people around them. While this is a great first step, I feel like it could be taken a little farther and have people spend a few minutes talking and getting to know each other.
After church, it’s very common for people to go out and eat together, further encouraging the formation of relationships.
Even though I don’t completely agree with everything that Christians believe, I can still see myself going to certain church just to make friends with the people there.
This sense of community, of building relationships are also one of the reasons why workshops and seminars are so popular. When you go to a workshop, you are surrounded by a bunch of people who are very similar to you and you can make some lifelong friends.
One of the best things about going to workshops is the relationships you form with the people there. So why not make that the main focus?
However, the biggest problem with most workshops is that the people you meet tend not to live right next to you. So how can you meet likeminded people who live by you?
How to Create Your Own Community
When creating a community, the first thing you have to do is figure out what event or activity you’re going to use to help facilitate relationships. It could be a game, a sport, a passion, your career, any type of common interest that will give people an excuse to hang out together.
If you’re unsure what you want to base your community on, ask yourself what kind of people do you want to meet? Do you want to meet soccer players, yogis, meditators, vegans? It could even be as broad as growth centered people. Figure out what kind of people you want to meet, then find an activity that can act as a way to facilitate relationships with them.
For example, once I’m in Brazil (I arrive May 8, 2012), I will begin building a yoga community. Yoga classes will be a way for people to come together and build relationships with each other. However, most yoga classes do nothing to facilitate relationships at all, yoga classes are not a very social atmosphere—but I’m going to change that.
To create a sense of community for yogis, all that really needs to be done is at the end of class (as previously mentioned) to encourage the students to find someone they don’t know, introduce themselves, and get to know each other for a few minutes. Maybe give them a question to break the ice or a direction to go in their conversation.
I will also be allowing anyone to make some announcements at the end of class, like whether there’s a party or a concert or a workshop or sporting event coming up that they’re attending. We could also have potlucks at a park where everyone brings some food and we hang out, kick the soccer ball around, and slackline. Going on camping trips seems to be the next logical step.
So all of these activities revolve around the common interest of yoga. Yoga can be great way to facilitate relationships, but regardless of what you’re interested in, you could form some type of community around it.
If you are a personal trainer you could have a weekly meetup where a small group of personal trainers take turns leading the class while everyone else gives feedback and takes notes to improve their own class. But you would also want to create that sense of community with the people you train, e.g. when they’re resting have them do something to encourage people to open up and get to know each.
If you’re really in to meditation you could have a weekly meetup where people come together and meditate. You could have the people in the group take turns leading the meditation (and have the rest of the group give feedback) if that’s the path you want to take. Or you could just lead the meditations yourself and encourage the meditators to interact with each other at the end of the session.
If you play a sport and you want to create more of a community with other players, you could announce that you’re about to go do something (whether it’s eating, drinking, a show, another game) and encouraging others to join.
If you’re vegan or interested in becoming one you could have potlucks once a month where everyone brings some vegan food and you trade recipes. You could play games or do activities that encourage social interaction.
When you talk about your community, let people know that the most important thing about it is community, it’s about forming relationships with other people. This will encourage the right people to come to the event with the right mindset.
Will this make some people uncomfortable and not want to attend? Of course. But the people who do like it, will LOVE it. And they’ll likely tell all their friends about it, too.
To help spread awareness you can advertise on Craigslist, meetup.com, couchsurfing.org, and to all of your friends and family. Don’t worry if it starts out slow, just keep truckin’ along and before you know it it’ll take on a life of it’s own.
Conclusion
What we as a society need most right now is a deeper connection with the people who live near us. There is nothing more powerful than being in a group of likeminded people who are all helping and encouraging each other to accomplish their goals.
Taking what was mentioned here, if you approach everything in your life as a means to facilitate relationships you will start making more and deeper friendships, which is really what life is all about.
So figure out what kind of community you want to start where you live, and start creating it!
If you’re still unsure about how to turn your passion into a community, post a comment and I’ll do my best to give you some ideas to help get you started.
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