Today I wanted to write a short post on the dance between individual and community oriented mentalities in relationships. Depending on your individual culture and where you are in the world, the balance weighs more in the direction of one or the other. In the western culture, the balance is weighed more towards individuality. The needs, wants, preferences and desires of the individual trump the needs and wants of a group whether that is family, group of friends or community at large.
There is a big emphasis on putting your needs first and even though I acknowledge the importance of the concept of filling your own cup first before helping another one, it is easy to fall into the trap of constantly looking at oneself and forgetting about the neighbor next door and his needs.
I feel lucky that for the first half of my life I grew up in a more community oriented culture. Neighbors stopping by for a chat or just to check in without calling beforehand, parents children and elderly all attending the same gatherings and parties with no table separation between the young and the older folks and grandparents dedicating the most part of their sunset years spending time with their grandkids and playing with them. All this was the norm for me. After moving to the west I realized what I deemed normal is actually not normal all across the globe. When I first came in contact with the different mentality, through my eyes people were much busier and rushed, they tended to be much less spontaneous and have to set up dates and game nights weeks in advance sometimes and hanging out with grandpa longer than for a few hours on weekends was seen as weird. Also you could live in an apartment building for a decade and not know your neighbors’ names…and that was not out of the ordinary!
I believe every individual gets to choose what way of living fits their personality and desires best because both ways of living have pros and cons however the security, beauty and growth coming from community oriented living rather than a more individualistic lifestyle far outweighs the more individual way of living in my opinion. Let’s put a caveat mentioning that I am very familiar with the darker side of having your community constantly involved in your life and I am acknowledging the hardship and stress that can come from a divergence in personalities and wills. On the flip side, as humans if we are only exposed to one context without knowing what else is possible it is hard to change or adopt or even desire different ways of communing. That is one reason we are so blessed with having the internet at our finger points and travelling which offers us to opportunity to expose ourselves to different cultures around the world and different ways of living.
Even though tending to one’s needs and goals alone at the expense of participating in community living can definitely have its benefits in different seasons of one’s life, it is hard to conceptualize the melancholy I might feel decades down the line when I might look back and see how many joyful and spontaneous moments were missed. I feel the nostalgia creeping in of having a friend pop by unexpectedly for dinner or my neighbor baking some fall cookies and sharing some. I hope this global health crisis the whole world was hit by will sensitize us more towards fellowship with those around us and the peace and happiness that it can bring.
Take care!
SimplyLadyEvergreen 