Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: cohousing v. other uses of your energy

[Rob Sandelin (Exchange) (Robsan]

First of all I have to admit that I am somewhat abnormal in that Cohousing 
and Intentional community building and networking are my primary volunteer 
activities.  So you should filter my opinions through that.

In my observations there is a balance which sort of evens everything out 
over the long term.  Yes, It requires energy and time to get this 
development work done.  But then there is the return, community dinners, 
community kid sharing, resource sharing, etc. which over the long term, 
returns the time back to you.

Even when you live in community there is that balance.  Committee meetings, 
social events, time just spent hanging out in the commonspace, requests for 
your ideas and input on this project or that.  You can let community consume 
as much of your time as there is, or only invest the time you want to. Not 
long ago I left to get the mail and it took two hours to get back home again 
because I kept runnin into neighbors who wanted to talk about this or that, 
or needed my help with something.   Living with a group people in a socially 
enhanced environment does that to you.  Sometimes it can drive you crazy 
when you want to get some little thing done and four people come in the 
space of a half an hour with something they have to get your input on.  So 
you either get good at politely declining or you end up distracted.  Its 
really your choice.

There probably isn't a single meeting that I go to that I couldn't honestly 
say there isn't something else I would rather be doing.  But in the end, I 
go to the meeting anyway (most the time) because its the most important 
thing to me at the time. In conversations with others this seems to be true 
of many other members as well.  We would rather be doing something else, but 
feel the community meeting is important enough to give our time to it.

I think the borders of time and energy are sharpest with parents of small 
kids.  Groups which have stringent participation requirements seem to lose 
parents of small kids. In families where both parents work outside the home, 
asking them to cut substantially into the few hours of time they get with 
their children is asking more than is reasonable. 

Typically there seems to be a fluctuating bell curve of participation in 
community, with a small group of people giving lots of time, a small group 
of people giving little time, and most  people giving somewhere between 
little and lots.  

The primary cost of community, is time.  If you don't pay the price, you 
won't get the product.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood