Building Community and Finding Your Tribe

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The more I learn and grow, the more clear it becomes to me that two essential components to living a fulfilled life are meaningful work and quality relationships. Last time we covered meaningful work, and this post will dive in to relationships and building community.

I recently finished reading Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, by Sebastian Junger. The book describes our human desire to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding. It covers loyalty, belonging, and our quest for meaning.

Note: All quotes referenced in this post are from this book, unless otherwise noted.

Junger describes “tribes” as follows:

“Acting in a tribal way means being willing to make a substantive sacrifice for your community — be that your neighborhood, your workplace, or your entire country.”

We are stronger when we’re joined together in community. Unfortunately this has become increasingly rare in modern society, much to our own detriment. Instead of looking out for one another, we’ve become more isolated and individualistic.

Humans need community to thrive

One of the most important aspects of life is our relationships with other humans – we need social connection to thrive.

“Human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. These values are considered “intrinsic” to human happiness and far outweigh “extrinsic” values such as beauty, money and status.”

Competency (in other words, meaningful work), authenticity (living out our purpose), and a connection to others. Having community with other people is one of the ways we feel fulfillment and contentment.

“Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.”

Humans normally aren’t looking for life to be as easy as possible. In fact, when we experience hardship it often leads to our greatest times of personal growth. Without community, we lose our sense of purpose. It leaves us feeling isolated and unnecessary – not making the contributions to society that we crave to make. Wealth, possessions, and status do nothing to solve this problem.

Community leads to belief in ourselves

Community also plays a huge role in our belief in ourselves.

“There’s something really powerful about groups and shared experiences. People might be skeptical about their ability to change if they’re by themselves, but a group will convince them to suspend disbelief. A community creates belief.” -Lee Ann Kaskutas (from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg)

Being around a group with shared values helps us grow into stronger individuals and creates belief. This belief can lead to breaking bad habits and building new positive habits. One example is Alcoholics Anonymous, the organization is so effective in inspiring change due to its meetings of people who are all on a similar path. They live life together and inspire one another. Being embedded in the right social groups creates this belief and can make change easier. Find your tribe by seeking out social groups that push you to be your best self. This can involve a common interest, hobby, philosophy, religion, or lifestyle.

Difficult circumstances, including war and natural disasters, have a tendency of bringing society together.

We’re currently undergoing a difficult time with the coronavirus pandemic. While there’s plenty of negative news out there, have you noticed all the positive stories too? There our countless stories of our courageous healthcare workers on the frontlines, people stepping up for their communities, and millions of dollars being donated. History shows that difficult circumstances have a tendency of inspiring our society to rally together and adopt more of a tribal mindset.

“When people are actively engaged in a cause their lives have more purpose… with a resulting improvement in mental health.”

“The last time the United States experienced that kind of unity was – briefly – after the terrorist attacks of September 11. There was no rampage shootings for the next two years. The effect was particularly pronounced in New York City, where rates of violent crime, suicide, and psychiatric disturbances dropped immediately. In many countries, antisocial behavior is known to decline during wartime.”

The book explores a few different examples of how morale was actually HIGHER in times of war due to this renewed sense of purpose, loyalty, and belonging that people felt to their communities. This was a surprising finding to me, but it further reinforces how essential human connection is to our lives.

Wealthy countries are often unhappier due to decreased community

In the same way, you would think that more affluent countries would be happier. However, this isn’t the case.

In the 2019 World Happiness Report, Finland takes the #1 spot despite not ranking in the top ten wealthiest countries. On the other hand, the United States is the wealthiest nation by a landslide – clocking in at 3 times higher than second place China, but its happiness ranking is merely 19th best.

We often hear the saying, “money doesn’t buy happiness.” Junger comes to this conclusion as well.

“As society modernized, people found themselves able to live independently from any communal group. A person living in a modern city or suburb can, for the first time in history, go through an entire day – or an entire life – mostly encountering complete strangers. They can be surrounded by others and yet feel deeply, dangerously alone.”

“People in wealthy countries suffer depression at as much as eight times the rate they do in poor countries.”

“The mechanism seems simple: poor people are forced to share their time and resources more than wealthy people are, and as a result they live in closer communities.”

Without being connected to community, we’re more likely to suffer feelings of isolation and depression. And most surprising – our wealth isn’t a remedy for this, in fact, it may be a driver of it. This feeling of isolation and loss of community is a troubling aspect about the current pandemic.

We should focus on our similarities, rather than our differences

When it comes down to it, we’re all humans. Too often, we let our differences drive us apart. Instead, we should be focused on our shared humanity, rather than these differences.

“If you want to make a society work, then you don’t keep underscoring the places where you’re different—you underscore your shared humanity.”

“We live in a society that is basically at war with itself. People speak with incredible contempt about – depending on their views – the rich, the poor, the educated, the foreign born, the president, or the entire US government. It’s a level of contempt that is usually reserved for enemies in wartime, except that now it’s applied to our fellow citizens.”

That last quote is a gut punch…and he’s not wrong. We need to love, support, and serve one another – no matter the differences we may have.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it’s clear how essential relationships and building community are to living a fulfilled life. I’d challenge you to think through these areas, how can you foster a tribal mentality in your own life? How can we build stronger relationships – as we all strive loyalty, belonging, and a quest for meaning?

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