One of my friend’s families took on an ambitious project of starting a local foods market in their hometown, a small town in rural Ohio. When the project finally came together, it was incredible, tons of people came to buy local maple syrup, beef, tomatoes, everything. They called their store Local Roots, and marketed the slogan “Cultivating Community.”
I bought a t-shirt with their slogan on it, and it’s stuck with me ever since. As I’ve started to realize that friends are the point of life, I’ve been trying to cultivate community everywhere, especially in places that seem to lack it.
One such place is the gym. Generally, when I go to the gym, I put in my headphones, zone in to my workout, and plug out an hour. That made me think, there must be a way to build community here! And as usual, there was an obvious option. I usually run in the mornings, and as I run past the handful of other people out before the sun is up, I wonder what makes these other runners get out here by themselves. Then I realized, why not start an early morning running group!
When thinking about building community though, it’s easy to get caught up with the idea of community and forget about the people that are actually involved. I once heard an important quote that touches on this idea.
“The man who loves community will bring it down, but the man who loves people will build community around him.”
You can’t go around working and trying to build this abstract concept of community. People don’t just come together for the sake of community. Rather, people come together because there are other people they like, care for, love.
That’s what makes the second part of the quote make sense. People will come together, around a person who is their friend. So that’s a simple thing I’ve been trying to work on, just being a better friend.
from ken
Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
photo by Tracy O
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