Finding Connection and Belonging
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an increasing awareness of a different problem: the epidemic of loneliness. As we emerge from the pandemic, we also have to think about how we will re-connect.
Consider someone like Steve, a successful corporate manager who had been working happily at the same company for about fifteen years. In 2019, Steve was ready to do something less intense and different. After giving notice, he talked with people to find out the options and identified a few potential projects that he could work on from home. After about six months of independent project work, he realized that he missed the collaborative atmosphere of the office and, even though he had everything he needed including more time for friends and family, he was lonely.
Steve had to figure out what he wanted and where he could find it. Spoiler alert: he needed to find the right community that would provide connection and “belongingness.” For him, the solution turned out to be rejuvenating his interest and love for music by joining a chorus.
How can it be that we live in a hyper-connected world with virtually instantaneous communication with anyone anywhere, yet we often feel lonely or isolated even before the COVID-19 pandemic?
Our social, professional, and cultural interactions have been overturned and reconstructed in ways that were not anticipated or even imaginable a year ago. Even the most forward-thinking trend spotters did not foresee how quickly and how completely we would be living in a world of almost exclusively virtual interaction at least for some time. And the future is likely to bring more uncertainty as we adapt to returning to in-person activities for work and fun.
In many ways, this dramatic shift has proven how committed we are to social interaction and finding those groups that are our “crowd.” Using all sorts of tools and platforms, it has been a time of trying to connect. For many of us, it has meant finding old friends or new interests while others have looked for new friends or focused more intently on an existing interest. The constant has been the drive to connect and to share.
It is well-recognized that as soon as material needs are taken care of, people need people as friends and groups that share their personal interests. Studies show that connection and interpersonal relationships effect cognitive processing and information organization. Personal interaction generates trust. There are countless examples and directives for engaging with others in both research and literature from E.M. Forster saying “only connect” throughout his novel Howard’s End to the research by Abraham Maslow that confirms the need for community described in A Theory of Human Motivation in 1943. In the paper, he addressed how people need “belongingness” and “love.” And many others have built on the concepts since then.
Furthermore, during COVID-19, people have been confined to a limited number of locations with reduced opportunities for doing things and having experiences. Yes, ordering through Amazon has never been easier or faster but we know from research and, for many people, personal experience that experience provides more long-term satisfaction than acquiring things beyond the necessities. Often, those experiences happen with others or are enhanced by being with others. Communities provide more opportunities for experience with others — a win-win-win of connecting, belonging, and doing.
Now we are ready to emerge, do new things, and meet other people. We want to reconnect and have that belongingness. We need strong bonds and robust communities to satisfy the demand for belonging and connection. But, for many of us, the challenge is finding the right community that aligns with a particular interest to achieve that win-win-win. What should you look for and what should you avoid? How do you know if a community will be welcoming? Share your values? Offer the right engagement opportunities?
The choices for joining, belonging, contributing, doing, and being can be overwhelming! You might find the proliferation in entities from corporate to charitable coupled with an excess of communications alienating to the point that you choose none of them. Ironically, the rapid increase in self-declared organizations and self-defined communities does not seem to be helping individuals find what they are looking for to avoid the epidemic of loneliness.
To complicate matters, if you are a joiner, you might feel pressure to join something because you are asked by a friend or colleague. Without thoughtfully balancing your use of time, it can lead to the problem of belonging to too many groups which can be counterproductive because you do not engage with any of them sufficiently to form friendships or feel connected. You feel loneliness even though you are a member of many groups.
So what can you do about it?
First you have to recognize that you are a member of many circles and groups such as family, neighborhood, work, school, cause, religious organization, and others with varying depths of engagement. The problem is that we neglect to think about how we choose our communities to provide the personal fulfillment that overcomes the epidemic of loneliness. You need to be thoughtful and intentional about your choices and take steps to strengthen your communities.
If you are over-committed or under-committed, in a career transition or looking for something more, have a new interest or want to help others, are on your own or are about to retire, or otherwise interested in doing things with other people in a mutually supportive environment, you need a methodology to help you find your communities with opportunities for engagement that align with your interests and values. Plus you have to consider that your interests change so that you need to be flexible in moving within and among communities over time.
The personal journey of belongingness has six elements:
1. Be mindful of what is important to you.
2. Consider how you spend your time.
3. Determine how and with whom you want to spend your time.
4. Identify communities that align with your interests and values.
5. Learn about being a good member for your identified communities.
6. Join and participate.
Also, you should think of it as a cycle and do an annual review to see if it is time for a change either because you have different interests or a community has changed its direction.
How do I know this can help? I watch it working all the time for me and for others. My journey started when I was raising my children and started volunteering — joining and observing new and different communities from the PTA to sports groups to local charities. Then I volunteered as an alum of my university. I was immersed in small groups and in the broader network. I had the opportunity to travel with an amazing group of volunteers to work with institutions around the world. Then working in alumni relations, I realized that it is all about connection and forming sustainable communities based on shared interests. It has been a powerful experience — life changing and inspiring.
So, think about how you might find connection and belonging — look at yourself in new ways. and write your story that leads to being a happier person.
