Communities Help Us Thrive
Human beings thrive in communities. Since the dawn of the human age, we have been most successful when we have come together. And while giving your neighbor’s car a jump start today may look different than gathering berries with your closest cave neighbors, the point is we’re stronger together.
After two years of isolation that came and went, we now know how important it is to be part of a community and to connect with other people. Before the pandemic began, many of us turned to our coworkers to build that community. We saw them every day. We shared the same workspace. We shared many of the same joys and frustrations. Even though we certainly did not live at work, we relied on coworker communities more heavily than our actual neighborhoods. Then we were told to stay home, and our communities swiftly changed.
Some of us woke up next to the same people we were expected to spend the whole day with, while others woke up alone. Many of us added in a daily walk around the neighborhood just to get out of the house. We could no longer engage in morning chit-chat with our coworkers or have lunch in the cafeteria or a nearby cafe while discussing current events. The best our old community could do for us was make mandatory Zoom calls. Let’s face it: the muted microphones and blacked-out cameras simply did not satisfy our desire for community, connection, and support.
