Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Minimum Work Requirements

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

"kwan lu" <kwanlu [at] hotmail.com>
is the author of the message below but due to a problem 
it was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager:
fholson [at] cohousing.org

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This is a chronic problem as old as history. My French immigrant ancestors 
bailed out on the Icarian Utopian experiment because there were those who 
would rather ride in the wagon than pull with the team.  It is a fact of 
human nature that any group, of any size, whether formed by voluntary action 
or the result of historical forces, will have its share of "social deviants" 
(in the most *literal* sense of "deviant", no judgement of individual worth 
or merit involved!). In some cases, this deviance has deleterious effects on 
the group as a whole. I would think that one advantage, at least, of having 
a deliberate community would be an increase in communication between the 
members, and a conscious effort to be aware of ingrained "bad habits", 
whether these be sloth or merely refusing to deal with those with whom we 
are having difficulties, on the grounds that "they should know better".


>From: Fred H Olson <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
>Reply-To: fholson [at] cohousing.org
>To: Multiple recipients of list <cohousing-l [at] freedom2.mtn.org>
>Subject: RE: Minimum Work Requirements
>Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 08:21:37 -0500
>
>"Rob Sandelin" <floriferous [at] msn.com>
>is the author of the message below but due to a problem
>it was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager:  fholson [at] cohousing.org
>
>To get off Cohousing-L, send email with UNSUBSCRIBE COHOUSING-L in the
>msg body to:  listproc [at] cohousing.org   Questions? email Fred - addr above
>
>--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------
>In travelling around various communites this issue comes up in basically
>every community I have ever visited (well over 100 at this point).  And I
>keep seeing the same reality about work. On one side of the curve are 
>people
>who put in lots of energy into community stuff. Their numbers are  small,
>say 20%. On the other  side are people  who put in little energy into
>community stuff. Hopefully  their numbers are about balanced  with the 
>hyper
>folks, also about 20%. The remaining 60% are all somewhere in the middle,
>sometimes on the the more energy side, sometimes on the less side. I keep
>seeing this distribution so frequently it has  become to define normal
>community functioning in my estimation. There are some good tools where you
>can get a good idea of the distribution of work time in your community.
>
> >From my experience:
>
>The wrong question to ask is: Is this distribution fair?
>The right question to ask is: Are people happy?
>
>Good communication, attitude and process work will go a long ways to
>increasing the happiness with the reality that exists, and make where you
>live a wonderful place. It's not a good sign in a community when all the
>work gets done but nobody is happy. Guilt and resentment are community
>cancers, they eat away at your relationships and cause great, and
>unnecessary unhappiness.
>
>I saw a banner over the door of a community center once that read something
>like this: I am not here to live  up to your expectations, and you don't
>have to live up to mine. Together we can work to create the harmony we want
>to live in, without guilt or shame.
>
>People  are different. To some folks the old fence is just fine as it is. 
>To
>others, they want to tear it down and make a project out of it, (its old 
>and
>ugly) build a new one, and paint it so its neat and trim. This difference
>drives wedges between people about community work. Each see the "fence
>project" differently. One says it's not important, the other says it's a
>priority because its not neat and tidy. Each sees themselves as the "right"
>way to be, and the others are: "odd, wrong, weird, overacheivers, lazy,
>hyper, uncommitted, anal retentive"...the labels go on and on. But they 
>just
>point out that while some folks see things one way, others see it 
>different.
>I once did an excercise where I had a group make a list of all the projects
>they thought needed doing in the community. Some peoples lists had more 
>than
>40 things on it. Other peoples list had 1 or 2 items on it, a couple had
>zero. The point was not the content of the lists, but the difference in the
>numbers of things on the list and what that  meant.
>
>This kind of learning about yourself, and each other, to understand how you
>think and see the world is very worth doing if you want to live happily 
>ever
>after in a community.
>
>Rob Sandelin
>Community Works! Group process consulting for  social change nonprofits
>
>

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