Considerations about Community - Community Series

When I think of my community, my first thought is always my support network. It’s my friends and family from across the country that I know I can call when I need anything. I describe these people with “They’re MY village”.  In most cases, when people are asking how to build a community or a village, they mean how to build a support network.

I have a local support network, which is the people I can easily make plans with and see with no large obstacles, and the people I would call if I needed an in-person favour. These are my friends, my boyfriend, my boyfriend’s family who have accepted me into their own family system.

I have a support network that lives further away. This is my family, who lives throughout the country, and I don’t see very often. I use the technology we have at hand to help keep that connection. I call often and have a general rotation of who I call and how often. It also includes my friends from when I lived in Ontario, I take the time to keep connected if they feel like calling, and if not, I always make plans to see them individually or as a group (if applicable).

The thing is, community is not just your support network. Community is the social network that is woven throughout our daily lives. Community is the resources you have available to you. It’s the interactions you have with the people you come across in the most minute ways. Community is having decency for those around you and being aware of the effects you have on others.

As mentioned in the introduction, this series is not about making friends, and it is about living your life with intentionally approaching everything in life with Kindness, Grace, and Empathy. Your goal in reading this should be to make a conscious decision to put the energy you want to receive into the world. If you think the world is cruel and people will always choose themselves, you can offer that kindness that you wish was more common.

In my experience, people tend to act in the way they think they are supposed to. If you give people the opportunity to experience your kindness, experience situations that subvert their expectations of negativity and replace it with positivity; it will encourage them to put that energy into their own world. Also in my experience, people want to be needed. If you ask, people will find their own purpose with helping others.

There will be people who witness the kindness, grace, and empathy you give freely who will want to take advantage of you. That reflects on their character, not yours. Striving to build community and striving to intentionally approach everything in life with Kindness, Grace, and Empathy, does not mean you let people mistreat you. It does not mean letting people walk all over you or talk down to you. It means knowing your limits and knowing how to ask for help.

I am a former people-pleaser. I know the struggle of wanting to do anything asked of me so long as it means they will say they like me. I was drowning in the pressure of everyone expecting me to do everything and feeling like I was a monster if I asked for anything back. It was in 2024 that I really began to understand why this was not a healthy way to live.

I was returning to Montreal, QC after a four-month break living in Hamilton, ON. Within the first 3 months of me returning, I had two friends (who were in a relationship with each other) tell me that they didn’t like that I wanted to have scheduled calls with them, and that they’ve hated the video calls we’ve been having for 2 on-going years. I had another friend tell me that I didn’t do enough for our 2-year friendship because I didn’t put the attention on them all the time. I had another friend end our 6-year friendship because I couldn’t afford the time, money, or energy to drive to Ontario for her birthday party with less than a week’s notice.

It was at this point that I felt like I was crumbling. I was trying to be everything for everyone, and I didn’t have the ability to ask for anything back. It seemed that I was only good for these so-called friends when I was willing to do whatever they said without any pushback. Between my individual therapy, my psychiatrist, and my own self-reflection, it became clear that the problem was not the sole responsibility of those friends. It was my fault too; I had built a relationship with them that never gave them insight into me. I was never vulnerable with them; I never gave them the opportunity to help me; I never gave them confidence in their capabilities as a friend to me. I held the responsibility of never setting expectations for them.

I’ve reflected and reflected again on the importance of asking for help. If you offer help to someone, offer the help in a genuine way. If you need help, give your village the opportunity to show their capabilities and experience. There can be some challenges that come with community, but the good strongly outweighs the bad.

Challenges That Come with Community

There is the very obvious challenge that comes with community, which is of course sacrifice and inconvenience. It takes patience, effort, time, consideration, and a variety of other skills to consistently show up for others in your network and community. It takes even more to show up for others who aren’t.

The phrase I use most often within this challenge is “Inconvenience is the price of community”. I know I read it somewhere online, and I’ve seen so many videos about it that I’ve lost count. I thought this was something everyone had seen until one time in my therapy session, I said it to my therapist, and she liked it so much that had me repeat it several times and then wrote it down. Inconvenience is the price of community. It’s the price you pay to receive the benefits.

Inconvenience is the price of community. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship, there is no such thing as a perfect person. You will sometimes have to be uncomfortable to be present for your loved ones, and you should find merit in what they find joy in. We are human beings, our general state of being in this day and age is discomfort. This doesn’t mean to let people mistreat you, it means that you should be willing to put yourself out of your comfort zone, and it means you should be willing to pick your friend up from the airport (even if it sucks).

When it was my friend Grant’s birthday, he had invited all his friends to dinner at a medieval tavern themed bar. My friend and Grant’s wife, Chandler, had planned it. A few of them dressed on theme because they like Renaissance fairs; I do not attend those but dressing up wasn’t necessary. I don’t enjoy loud crowded environments because I get anxious, and the way to get a servers attention at this bar was to pound on the table until they came over. There were no forks and it was expected that you ate with your hands, and when I asked for a fork, they brought me a barbeque fork. I picked a spot at the table against the wall sitting in between Damien and an acquaintance I had me before, because I knew that would ease some of my anxiety if I knew nothing could sneak up on me. I brought wet naps for my hands, and I would ask Damien to get the attention of a staff member for me. It was a pleasant night with good company. At the end of the night, when we were all leaving together, Chandler said, “I hope you all had a good time and had fun! Maybe we could do this again!”

I hugged her and said, “I had so much fun tonight, I love you both so much, I’m so glad we’re friends. Do not EVER invite me to something like this again.”

Now here’s the thing – I didn’t lie saying I had fun, I did. Even though I didn’t like most of the aspects that made up the venue, I love my friends and I could have fun with them wherever we go. I made myself some accommodation for the things I would usually have a bigger issue with. I checked in with Chandler on what their must-have versus nice-to-have requirements for participation were, and I stayed present with them throughout the night. I was uncomfortable because of sticky hands and loud crowds. I still had fun because I got to participate in life with my friends.

The inconvenience was not attending the birthday party. The inconvenience were things that I usually would avoid for myself. When I say, “Inconvenience is the price of community.” I mean that you need to be willing to be uncomfortable, or put out of your way, or any other sort of inconvenience you can think of. If you preach community, you have to be a part of the community. If you put in the work, you can reap the benefits; otherwise, lower your expectations about what others owe to you.

The Disagreements about Inconvenience

It is important, however, to be mindful of what the difference between being inconvenienced is versus staying in a situation where you are being mistreated. As I have mentioned before, the goal in this series is not to make friends but to approach everything in life with kindness, grace, and empathy. It does not mean let people mistreat you. The biggest indicator if someone should be allowed in your life is whether the person brings you more joy than inconvenience. If you are leaving most interactions with someone feeling drained and unfulfilled (and sometimes even worse feelings than that), they do not need to be a part of your personal network. Approaching everything in life with kindness, grace, and empathy means you are aware of the consequences of your actions. You are aware of your affects on others. You have a nice way to say everything.

That’s a phrase I have heard my whole life, “There’s a nice way to say everything.” My mom would say that to me when I would say something mean or hurtful about someone’s actions. It just means there is a nice way to reframe the sentence without directly assigning judgment to the person. Sometimes this was because I was assuming that someone had bad intentions, and sometimes this was because we wanted to say something mean but we had to say it in a backhanded way. At this point in my life, I use it to assume the best in everyone.

In one version of this scenario, I am driving my car while on my way to an appointment, and even though the roads are clear (a rarity in Montreal), the car in front of me is driving 10 kilometers an hour under the speed limit and I am not able to pass them. Internally, I am beyond furious and screaming, “For Christ’s Sake! GO!”

Then there’s a little voice telling me to say it nicely. So, I take a deep breath, and I say, out loud to nobody, “Maybe they are driving to a birthday party, and they have the cake in their car.” I say it out loud, even when no one is with me, because I also need to hear it being said. I need to offer myself some reasons that someone might be driving slowly when they could go faster. It gives me the option to assume that they are not driving slowly to make me angry, and it helps me remember my approach should be led with kindness, grace, and empathy.

In another version of a car scenario, I am driving normally on the highway, and someone comes up quickly behind me, weaves through the traffic and cuts me off. Internally, and sometimes externally, I scream and I cuss them out. I want to tell them off, and the first thought is always, “They think they’re so important. They think it’s okay to endanger everyone around them.”

Then there’s a little voice telling me to say it nicely. So, I let myself feel the anger, I take a deep breath to focus on the fact that everyone is still safe, and then I say, out loud to nobody, “Maybe they have diarrhea and really need to get to a toilet.” Again, I say it out loud because I need to laugh a little, and also to remind myself to approach any situation with kindness, grace, and empathy.

I say my nice thoughts out loud, even if no one is there to hear them. I do this because I’m practicing my brain to have those thoughts. It's like if you start something off as a joke, if you say it enough, your brain will believe it to be true. It’s like when a new slang word comes into popularity, and everyone likes to joke about the word and how dumb it is. Then suddenly, you accidently say “Swag” as a very real, unironic reply. I practice my nice thoughts, I actively make conscious decisions each time to choose kindness, choose grace, and choose empathy.

If you are going to have disagreements with your loved ones, you need the right approach. You need to approach disagreement with a shared goal of solving your shared problem. You also need to know yourself well enough to know your boundaries, you need to know your triggers, and you need to know how to diffuse your own temper. If the disagreement is making you doubt the relationship between you and them, ask yourself: Is this disagreement worse than the joy they have brought on a regular basis?

Communication during a Disagreement

I am not perfect in this approach, that’s why I practice. I practice my nice thoughts by saying them out loud. I also will vocalize what brings me joy within my relationships. I journal consistently to remind myself of my own joys, fears, feelings, hopes, and goals for the future. I have gotten very good at communicating with myself and, therefore, others. It is important that you know what you stand for, and that you know what you will tolerate if anyone tries to take advantage of the kindness, grace, and empathy you put into this world. And there will be people trying to take advantage of it.

I don’t fight with my loved ones. I don’t fight with them because that implies that I’m against them. I don’t fight with my loved ones, but I can have tension and disagreements. My goal in any disagreement is to find the solution and collaborate to benefit the most while harming the least. I try my best to keep calm, and if I notice myself being too riled up or feeling malicious within our conversation, I excuse myself. I will say something like, “I don’t want to be discussing this anymore right now. I can feel myself getting angry, and I will say things that I don’t mean just to be mean. I’m going to excuse myself from this conversation and when we’ve both calmed down, we can tackle the problem.”

This was not my instinct of a reaction. I have this reaction because I didn’t want to be a yeller. When I was nineteen, my first serious boyfriend and I got into a fight. I don’t remember what the fight was about, but I do remember that I was getting really angry and I raised my voice at him. I yelled something at him, and he replied in the quietest voice I had ever heard, “You can be mad, but please don’t yell at me.” It was the type of voice you would hear from a scared kid. He wasn’t telling me what to do, he was asking me not to yell because it scared him. It stopped my anger. I thought of every time my parents yelled at me, and how I was so scared of their volatile reactions to the point where I was walking on eggshells to just be home. I didn’t want to be like that.

I took a breath. I apologized and I agreed. I said something along the lines of, “I don’t really like being yelled at either. If you don’t yell at me, I won’t yell at you. We will have to really listen to each other during disagreements if we want to keep calm.”

I took that interaction and ran with it. I don’t want to be a yeller or an angry person. I want to listen to what the person is saying, and I want to be in control of my emotions. If I want to bring kindness, grace, and empathy into the world, I have to be able to regulate myself during hard conversations. If I want to approach life with kindness, grace, and empathy, I need to stay calm and remember what I actually am fighting for – Community.

Benefits That Come from Community

The reason I’m inspired to write this series is because during my volunteering as an animator in an English Conversation Group, the day after my birthday, the women were impressed with how much my friends did for me without asking. I specifically remember, one of the girls asked me, “Did you ask them to do all of that?” and I said, “No. They’re my friends, they know how I want to be treated.”

One benefit that comes from community is the opportunity to learn. Approaching the world with kindness, grace, and empathy gives you the freedom to let down your guard and open your mind to new ideas, facts, and perspectives. The more you learn, the more you will realize you do not know, and the more your curiosity will grow. Loved ones and strangers alike can offer you a new perspective that you might not have considered before.  

Whether it is a family member or a friend, you should approach each conversation with curiosity, not expectation. There is always something to learn in each conversation every single day. Even the people you know well, they have their own inner world that you will never know fully. Even if the something you learn is just a fun fact about your loved one, you can take joy in knowing them better.

With this curiosity in mind, you should also try to have regular communication and connection with people both older and younger than you.  Older friends can give you advice from lived experience and offer you a perspective of something that you both lived through from a more insightful point-of-view. Younger friends can give you fresh, optimistic perspective that hasn’t been jaded by the cruel realities of life. Life goes quickly and only having friends that are the same age as you takes away opportunities to grow your own perspective. Giving yourself the opportunities to grow will allow you to offer more kindness, grace, and empathy back out into the world.

Another benefit that comes from community is being able to demonstrate that knowledge and capabilities and being able to ask that of others. Everyone wants to be needed; no one likes to feel useless or helpless in any situation. When someone asks for you to help them because they know you can handle it, you will feel confident and wanted. That’s how most people feel when you ask for their help specifically. Asking for help lets your loved ones show off their capabilities and demonstrates your trust in them.

If you are approaching life with kindness, grace, and empathy, you need to think of yourself and your friends in a positive light. I have struggled with anxiety and depression throughout my life, and just like how I have to practice my nice thoughts aloud to reframe my assumptions when I’m angry. I have to practice my nice thoughts aloud to reframe my assumptions when I’m being self-deprecating.  

Assuming that you are burden who is dragging your friends down is thinking of your friends in a bad light. Do you think your friends, your loved ones, really think about you like that? Do you think that your friends are mean people who take joy in your suffering? The answer is likely no. The answer is likely, they don’t actually think this at all, they love you. If your friends were feeling this way towards you, they are not your friends.

Assuming that your friends are incapable of helping you is like thinking of your friends as dumb or as incapable. Do you think your friends, your loved ones, are unable to help? Do you think your friends wouldn’t even be able to try to help you? The answer is likely, again, no. The real answer is that your friends are capable, your friends are smart, and your friends would help you if you gave them the trust and vulnerability to let them.

Everyone wants to feel needed, everyone wants to be wanted, and giving your loved ones the opportunity to help you will make them feel good and will help you with what you need. It will build your relationship and connection.

Shared sadness is half the sadness, and shared joy is double the joy. When you share your grief or your hard times with a trusted network of friends and loved ones, you minimize the overbearing feeling of sadness and hopelessness. You won’t feel as alone. When you share your successes and your celebrations with those same people, you have increased your feelings of happiness because they will celebrate with you.