Cohousing-L Mailing List: Finding your path in community

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

This message is  mostly in response to Kay Argyles post about her own
journey: Re: [C-L]_multiple communities (was: Re:: Diversity of
Cohousing) However, its not a direct message to her, or a direct reply, more
of a spark of a tangent that her writing gave me.

I think Kay hit upon a major truth which bears  reinforcing. To create a
sense of community you have to be willing to commit some time to it. In too
many Cohousing lives, time is not available. I see this over and over and
over again. People want this thing envisioned as "community", and then find
that the time requirements are too expensive for them. This is the core of
almost every cohousing groups consensus and social problems: Too many people
are not willing to spend the time required to work it out. And some of this
time, is personal work, learning skills of cooperative group work.

The folks that do give the time can often end up frustrated by this. It is
so common its almost universal. So as you find yourself in a unhappy state,
in my humble opinion, you need to look carefully at yourself and understand
what it is you need, and how you can get it. If your needs are dependant
upon other peoples actions, then you need to start a in depth set of
communications so that every body knows that. Once you figure out what you
need you can also take clear steps to move yourself to get that.

Example: A women was unhappy with the level of social intimacy at community
meals. So she started a series of dinner parties, on non-meal nights,
invited people she wanted to, and had some great social evenings with 4-5
people. Over time, the entire community had cycled through one of her dinner
parties (no, she did not cook all the meals) and several other people began
to want community meal to be more like her dinner environment, and so
several changes were made and she pretty much stopped doing the dinner
parties, because she now gets what she needs at community dinner. (small
groups with intimate conversations - they spread some of the tables WAY far
apart for example)

You choose the path you walk in community. It might be  beneficial to look
at what you want, and then create it as best you can. You will probably find
more happiness that way.

If you are not happy, you will not stay. And, in opinion, you should not
stay in situations that  make you unhappy. Life is WAY TOO SHORT. And as far
as I know for sure, you only get one life. A great topic to bring up in your
group is: Finding my personal happiness. Sharing the things that make you
happy gives people the  knowledge to let you do those things. If I know that
making gardens makes you happy, then I will invite you over to my ugly front
yard and let you make your happiness there. If playing with kids makes you
happy, then I can let the proposal for kids outings pass, even if I disagree
about part of it, because I know your happiness is involved.

You have to understand yourself and what makes you feel the way you do. In
my opinion, this is absolutely crucial. Far too many people,  are out of
touch  with themselves! How can you possibly work closely with other people
if you don't know yourself and what makes you work? This kind of stuff
rarely ever surfaces in cohousing community. Instead people walk around in
knots, unhappy, and frustrated, with no outlets or help.

Often I run into people who want to change the WHOLE COMMUNITY in some way
which suits them better. In my experience, its much easier to create small
changes, with a subset of people first, then let it spread if its going to.
Sometimes it will not. Cohousing is not a very good community form  for
meeting intense personal needs. There is no commitment to this and so you
might be better off in a different kind of community  if you are wanting
help in your personal work.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.332 / Virus Database: 186 - Release Date: 3/6/02

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l