Our economy and our opportunities thrive – better together
March 05, 2022
When people participate in their community… we all win, individually and together. The rising tide lifts all boats.
Our economy and our opportunities thrive – better together.
But, not everyone has the same opportunities to participate in their community.
“Why?” you ask…
Well, for many reasons.
Broken homes, single-parent households, childhood traumas, mental health issues, lack of education, affordable childcare, fear and hostility, insecurity and concerns for public safety.
For us to work upstream and affect the most positive change for the future, we ought to come together to work on communal, collaborative, symbiotically beneficial bargains.
Local employers need more employees…? Let’s set up a local economic engine with the help of the high school, community college, and local childcare centers to support the growing demands for infrastructure underneath families.
It’s been estimated that 60-80% of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency.
I don’t know about you, but just hearing this makes me shutter with fear and a frustrating indignation as I ask WHY!? Why is this the case? What can we do to give families even just a little bit more margin – some breathing room. (I assume things are similar elsewhere, in other first world countries and other countries and cultures too)
We all need margin.
Without margin, we get stuck in what they call, “the tyranny of the NOW,” where it becomes impossibly difficult to look and plan into the future, setting forth one’s trajectory for the better due to overwhelming pressing everyday needs for survival.
What could we create when we’re not constantly forced into a 24 hour cycle of just trying to survive?
Lack of food, shelter, domestic violence, childhood traumas, overwhelming stress and anxiety or depression can all play a primary role in preventing MARGIN – a chance to catch your breath, rest and reset the charted course for the future.
We all need margin.
And one of the beautiful things I’ve grown to love about deep and meaningful, tangible community is that everyone benefits when we have equal and equitable opportunities to participate in community – individually and together.
Home ownership increases.
Reliable partnerships improve between local businesses, healthcare, and education.
New businesses spring up due to collaborative learning and social development of ideas in open space together, shaping and sculpting the real existence of economy and community right in front of us.
People feel more safe, secure, calm and comfortable. Art increases, and access to art for all increases, inspiring more growth, more development, more culture, more community.
People have a chance to participate in local leadership, have the chance to volunteer, help the proverbial “old lady cross the busy road.”
People have the chance to not just participate as consumer but participate in equal exchange in their community as producer as well.
It is this equal exchange, this beautiful give and take, tug of war that I find so interesting in the full sense of what community can mean.
Because get this…. If someone has two open hands, they feel desperate and need a helping hand, they think they have nothing to provide others and if someone has two closed hands as fists, reluctant to let go, they won’t be able to give or receive anything.
I believe we are best designed for this give and take relationship, I believe we win together when we allow people to both give and take.
We all have something to give, we all have something to learn and grow from - something to receive as benefit from others.
We must remain open; we must remain strong and courageous.
We must both equally believe we need support and have the courage to believe we can support others.
This might sound strange for you to hear… but I actually believe that far too many people hold themselves back inside the coddling of our American lives of comfort and ease because we fear what might happen if we decide to get involved. Who might we offend, who might we hurt, how could we – in our fully broken and fully healed human selves EVER be able to offer anything to others for help and support?
“Who am I to think I have anything to give? I’m a nobody. I’m no one. I’m nothing special.”
These are destructive phrases we tell ourselves and let ourselves think every single day… but I think they hold us back and hold others back as well.
So encourage one another, remind one another of the beautiful gifts we all have – uniquely different but unanimously essential for us to EVER have the chance to thrive together.
Remind yourself of love. Remind others of love in your actions and wisdom, your words and your walk.