Community Isn't Something You Find in a Crisis — It's Something You Build Before One

It’s a hard time to be a human. Anger and fear are very present. Hopelessness is a guest in many conversations. Many people I know are inexplicably tired all the time.

There’s a lot that feels heavy right now in the world. I know my own tendencies around wanting to get quiet, reset, and hunker down with my immediate family in times like this. I crave the ability to control what I can, surround myself with those in my immediate sphere, and just focus on what I can in my own life.

But right now, that’s not enough. Not enough for our planet. Not enough for our country. And actually, not enough for ourselves. We are social creatures—even the most introverted amongst us—and when things get hard, we need each other.

Research reinforces the idea that we not only need each other, we are better when we are together. There’s the Harvard study on adult development that began in 1938 and tracked 268 men for over 80 years to identify key indicators in physical and mental health. The findings showed that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships is a major influence on our health. Recently, Stephanie Harrison published, New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That’s Got it Wrong. In her book, 10+ years of research led to her conclusion that on our connections with others and helping others is a huge source of happiness.

I also recently read The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, a fictional story (with uncanny parallels to today), written in 1993, but is set in 2024 in a world facing climate change, social inequality, and societal collapse. The book challenges the notion of how much we can isolate and protect ourselves, and why finding community, especially a diverse community, is the answer.

So, as the calendar year turned, I found myself wondering about my own connection to my communities. In the past few years I have found myself connecting to communities through routine—kid sports teams, monthly dinners with friends, and networking groups. I wanted to get curious about what these communities held for me, what other communities I was missing, and what parts of myself were being cultivated and challenged by my communities.

I created a Community Connections Inventory that allowed me to investigate the regularity, levels of intimacy, range of diversity, and deeper purpose of my communities. Through this, I found some interesting patterns and connections—that my monthly communities offer the greatest depth of intimacy, that many of my communities are focused around shared activity, and that I don’t have many communities that offer diversity of perspective.

Now, going back to how heavy it can feel to be a human right now, I know that I am going to have to commit myself to a deeper purpose in cultivating and curating communities in my life. I won’t be booking every night or every weekend with community gathering. But I know that taking this opportunity to build community is one of the best ways to take care of my health, to find deeper happiness, and to work together to support each other in carrying the weight of the world.