Watching the world cup rugby final I got to thinking. Participating in community is like playing a sport. A group of people get together to do something with a common purpose and a clear set of rules. In sport you learn the rules and some skills then go do it and have fun. If you want to be good at it then you need to thoroughly understand the rules, learn the skills and how to team up with others – lots of personal and group training and learning. If you want to be really good at it you dedicate large parts of your life to it and train from all different perspectives – physical fitness, mindset, attitudes, emotional resilience, skills, rules, practice set plays with your teammates, and how to combine together, study how others do it, learn how to take care of your body with nutrition, rest etc, how to take care of your emotions. Sports teams look at the group psychology, they learn to sense conflict and tension in the team and they resolve it. They clearly understand each persons role on the team (what position they play and what that means) and they stick to it e.g. you don’t see a soccer goalie running up the field to score goals that would break the integrity of the team and disaster would ensue. They bring in experts in each area of learning they need and learn from highly experienced and skilled people – or at least more experienced and skilled people than they are. They spend time understanding what it takes to be successful and identifying the work they need to do to become successful. They find a common goal and dream and they care for it.
For me as an individual the game of life is like that. I want to have a great life, I’d like to master self care and self love and look after myself. As a member of different groups – clubs, communities, companies, organisations, countries etc – I’d like to also have functional groups that support each other in living a great life, behaving collaboratively, cooperatively and caring for each other and the environment (stewardship). If feel in society we have allowed competition to take over – I compete with others for scare resources be they physical resources like gold or land or trees for timber or oil for energy, or we compete for money. We have forgotten the joy of playing, having fun, sharing and creating together. In my truth, we have all we need on this planet, we have conquered our survival issues, we know how to live regeneratively on the planet. Though for some reason we decided to argue over resources instead of share and have fun.
Playing at community is just like playing a sport – a group of people coming together collaboratively to have a shared experience – in this case playing the game of community. Though unlike sports teams, many communities do not choose to train, to learn the rules or to even define and agree the rules, to learn the individual and group skills needed to have a great community experience. For some reason many people think we should simply know how to live in community, as if it is in our DNA or instinctual and there is no need for any of the things that make sports teams great (training, learning, emotional maturity and resilience, good nutrition…). Many times if they do recognise the need then it does not happen because people don’t have the time or the money to do it or they prefer to relax and go on holiday or they can’t agree on what particular skill (decision making, conflict resolution, etc ) we should focus on or if the skill is agreed then what technology solution we should use (e.g. holacracy, sociocracy, consensus, voting, democracy etc…)
Instead of training at the sport of community, many communities move ahead with a lack of skills, agreements or rules, lack of understanding of what’s needed, of alignment of dreams, little understanding of each other, no access to expertise and a lack of willingness to train or to identify what’s needed to improve. They carry the tensions and conflicts like there is nothing that can be done about them. They make the best of the current situation – a not too uncomfortable comfort zone and think “ Oh well, it’s a lovely place to live, pity we can’t improve it. It’s just how life, humans and community is.” Or perhaps they are blocked by fear of change or of the potential conflict that addressing things could raise or simply by not knowing what steps to take or they (other community members) won’t change or we don’t have time or money or …..
Some questions to consider:
- Why is it that in our sporting, professional and hobby aspects of our lives we see the need to learn and train and we actually do it investing time and money but in the community aspect of our lives we don’t or we ignore it?
- Why are we happy to invest in learning an instrument or to sail or paint but not how to resolve conflict, bring people together, communicate kindly and compassionately or even how to look after our own bodies?
- If we look at the larger perspective, why do so many people not participate in the democratic or other governance process of their state, countries, local communities or even homes preferring to leave it to others?
- Where in your individual life have you given up on making your personal, your family, your community or even country and global life better?
- Where and why have you stopped participating in community at different levels?
- Could you be interested in reengaging or in participating more? What emotions come up when you think about doing this? How can you move past any blocks that are preventing you?
- What resources and skills do you have to contribute?
- What resources and skills do you lack that you would like to develop?
- Who around you is like minded and would also like to contribute? For me, it’s more fun doing these things with others. What groups already exist that you can play with?
- What’s your first step?
When living in community everything needs attention and doing. I believe we have all the technical solutions to meet our needs – green energy, sustainable housing, regenerative farming etc. Expertise for these is easy to find online or in person and is relatively easy to learn. The most challenging area is learning how to play together nicely. That is how do we live cooperatively and collaboratively in a way that is kind and uplifting for all people in the community.
The challenging and key areas we need to improve is our sense making (how to understand the world around us), our decision making and our interpersonal skills (kindness, compassionate communication, difference handling and conflict resolution).
Some key skills that are needed are the ability to:
- Sense into and know what is most needed by myself
- Sense into and know what is most needed by the group as a whole
- Healthily live with continual change
- Learn
- Be with my emotions
- How to do the above together and as a group
All of the above need to be learnt at the individual and the group level. Ideally these skills are supported with things like tools, processes, other skilled people and an open culture to make the application of them easy and to embed them in the culture of the group.
A great starting point to give a holistic perspective is to deeply ask questions like:
- What is it to be human?
- What are my responsibilities to myself, my family, my community and the planet?
- Who do I want to be?
- What is kindness? (to myself and to others)