Living in Community

Community refers to a group of people who share a common interest or desire to strive toward a unified vision. Communities of people living together as close-knit groups go back in history almost as far as historical records go. Whether living together for protection, convenience, or comfort there have been many records of communities throughout history and even in our time. So what is community living and how does it benefit us?

What Is Community Living

Community living is when a group of people decide that they would like to occupy a certain area as a collective group that look out for each other’s wellbeing and survival. The saying ‘everyone is family to me’ becomes applicable in these situations as everyone is equally involved in each other’s lives and strives to support one another.

Benefits of Community Living

There are countless numbers of benefits to community living, especially in modern times where almost everything is uncertain. To name just 3 of these benefits, they are:

·       Safety – Communities living together look out for one another. This doesn’t mean that your neighbor is constantly spying on you. It does, however, mean that due to the fact that you are all looking out for one another, these communities tend to have significantly less incidents of crime.

·       Comfort – Nothing is better than knowing that you are surrounded by people who love and care for you. Living in communities generates these feelings because everybody is invested in one another’s lives. Knowing that if you need to talk to somebody you can just go over to your closest neighbor and get advice from them adds a new level of comfort to how we as humans deal not only with our situations but with the world at large.

·       Anti-ageism – There is a vast gap of generational understanding between our current generation and our older generation. This is fueled even more by the advances of technology and the self-centered, individual, mindset held by the younger generation. This often means that the older and younger generation are usually at a place of disagreement and do not know how to relate to one another. In communities, however, old and young take an active interest in each other’s lives. This is due to the fact that the community is close to one another and shares a genuine care. It allows the older generation to share their wealth of knowledge and wisdom with those younger, who are still in the process of venturing out into the world.

·       Loneliness – You may be wondering how anyone can feel lonely with over 7 billion other people on the planet. And yet you probably have some experience in this as well. The world statistics of people who say that they are lonely, even when interacting with others, is shocking. Community living helps alleviate this loneliness by encouraging the interaction of authentic support between members of the community, young and old.

Getting Back to Communities

With the world getting smaller and more people left feeling lost in the void, there is a trend beginning to show where people are looking at community living as a preferred way to live. The benefits of this type of living over city are clearly seen and are attracting more and more people to it. We could easily begin to see a shift in the general ‘template’ of living as community living gains tractions and starts to make a comeback in our modern times.