Will you take this community to have and to hold . . .?
Original Medium Post HERE
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Take your relationship to the next level. Increase your joy. Support your community
Friends from our community — and from beyond — gathered for a disco party to support East Boston Social Centers. Sorry all for the failed red-eye reduction.
Commitment-free zone
We live in a time of less commitment. Situationships are trending. People marry later — or don’t marry. Workers spend less time at each job before quitting.
Too much choice is one likely culprit.
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Even committing to jam or chocolate is harder when faced with too many choices. This famous study found customers given six jam options were more likely to buy jam than those given twenty-four choices. The same researchers found customers with fewer chocolate choices were more satisfied with their chocolate than were those who reviewed more options first.
With apps like Tinder and Zillow[1] presenting a seemingly boundless set of options, committing to any one person or home might similarly feel like giving more up.
Beyond dating apps (which Gen Zers are abandoning), abundant modern choices can drive commitment phobia. Commitment might reduce options: where we might live, what work we might do.
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Our modern cultural narrative leads people to be afraid of compromising ourselves: of committing before we can learn who we are. But . . .
Could our fear of commitment be reducing our joy (sustained emotional wellbeing)?
Could we be missing the ways commitment can help us learn who we are?
What might be the benefits of committing to community?
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Communities like jams
My wife, Vanessa, and I spent quite a bit of time debating where we’d want to live. We shared many key criteria, but ranked them in different orders. Criteria included, but were not limited to:
· Proximity to:
o Friends
o Family
o The ocean
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· Racial and socioeconomic diversity
· Social justice orientation
· Access to the great outdoors
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· Easy, transit-oriented commute
· Walkability
· Curb appeal
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· Friendliness
· Not being too status conscious
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· Good and diverse schools
· Great and diverse restaurants
· Great baked goods
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Of course, the place that combines all those items does not exist.
Like that supermarket jam aisle, Greater Boston provides hundreds of communities, thousands of neighborhoods. But ironically, like with jam, seeing more options can illuminate how any given option is less perfect.
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We won’t find perfection. That’s a good thing.
For much of human history, we were much less aware of choices, since the choices were: 1) our village; 2) not our village.
The downside: when it really didn’t work, there wasn’t an escape hatch. The upside: we committed completely, at a level below consciousness.
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Now we are conscious of all the choices. This can lead us to seek non-existent perfection. We might also fail to realize if we did find the “perfect” community, it probably wouldn’t be home.
Like Allegra in the movie Hitch, who wants the real Albert — rather than a perfect-on-paper, more polished man — we might not really want perfect people and perfectly manicured lawns and perfect croissants (well, maybe the croissants . . .).
When we commit to a community, we might discover we actually fall more in love because of the quirky local with creative outfits featuring too-tight pants or the store clerk who always tells you, with an ironic smile, why you should shop somewhere else.
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Take the risk. Commit.
Commitment to a community doesn’t have to be for ever. It can start with being more immersed in community for now.
The more we give to our community, the more our community will give back.
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The math is simple. Imagine a community is an 8 on a 10 point scale. If we spend years looking for a 9, and only ½ commit, we’ll only experience a 4 (8 x ½). But if we give it our all (8 x 1), we can experience that 8 — which is pretty, pretty, pretty good.
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So why not try a trial commitment?
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What are your vows?
Do you take this community as the home of the regular restaurant that will love you, know your regular order, and randomly close when you really want to eat there?
Do you take these neighbors to chat with when shoveling snow, to share meals, and to commiserate when your street is dug up again and you can’t understand why this additional digging could possibly be needed?
Do you take these friends, whom you will bump into in the supermarket and at children’s recitals, to regularly discuss planning to meet up for dinner with the kids, or drinks alone — and to actually successfully meet up once a year, after which you will inevitably say “that was easy. We shouldn’t let it be so long next time”?
If you do, your community will probably take you to have and to hold, too.
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After the vows
My family has made our commitment to Eastie/ Winthrop land. We have given and received meals when children were born, attended funerals and wakes, celebrated together, exercised together, danced together.
We have recognized that rather than taking choices away or holding back parts of ourselves, our life in community has helped us understand who we are. It has made us better.
After ~twenty years in this community, I am looking back and realizing I’ve already had friends here for half a lifetime.
Here’s to being stuck together for life.
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Stay joyful, East Boston.
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Please share, subscribe, and join our movement by emailing me or supporting East Boston Social Centers. Look out each week for our posts about boosting joy the only way we can: in community.
