Nobody’s perfect, and sometimes we all find ourselves in that very awkward situation where we need to cancel plans last minute because of some unforeseen emergency. Usually, we do our best to avoid these situations, not only because of the awkwardness of it all, but because we don’t want to disappoint our friends or make them feel like we don’t value their time.
Being punctual and sticking to commitments we make with people we care about is just common courtesy. At least, it used to be.
With society becoming more and more individualistic each day, as well as the constant misuse of ‘therapy speak’ across social media, it seems as though a lot of us have forgotten that it takes effort to maintain and nurture any sort of relationship, especially friendships.
If you want a sustainable friendship with someone, you need to show up for them consistently and naturally expect the same in return. Because, contrary to the popular belief making its rounds on the internet, you actually do owe your friends and your community something. Effort.
Recently, there’s been a bit of pushback against the hyperindividualistic tendencies we’ve adopted thanks to social media and other aspects of our society today. We’re slowly losing our sense of community and belonging, even though we need it now more than ever. And people are starting to notice this.
You may or may not have heard the phrase “everybody wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager.”
This pretty much sums up everything that this article argues. We’ve become aware of how important a strong and supportive community is for everybody, but not enough people are comfortable enough with being inconvenienced to actually foster that community.
A community, or a ‘village’, in this sense, requires mutual support and effort to function. It doesn’t just come naturally and unconditionally. Your community doesn’t always need to mean the people in your surrounding area; it can simply be your group of friends, your family, or even your colleagues.
Essentially, anyone that you care about and feel you need in your life. In order to have a community to support you, you need to contribute to that community yourself. Even if it doesn’t always suit you, because the cost of community is often being inconvenienced.
Again, it’s perfectly fine to change plans or drop commitments when you have no choice, but I think we all need to be reminded that “not feeling like it” isn’t exactly a valid excuse.
This is not a call to exhaust yourself for the sake of the people around you, but sometimes you do need to put your feelings aside and go ahead with what you promised. If you agreed to meet a friend who you haven’t seen in a while for coffee, and an hour before the agreed time, you find you’re not really in the mood to leave your house, it’s probably a good idea to go anyway.
You might feel a bit tired or not in the mood, but who’s to say your mood won’t be lifted after seeing your friend again? And even if it doesn’t, your friends deserve your time and care, even if you don’t always feel like giving it. In fact, in a healthy relationship of any sort, you should want to benefit the life of the other person, to see them happy and comfortable in the relationship.
Spending time with each other, offering each other support and doing favours are all completely normal parts of a healthy friendship or relationship. You should enjoy doing these things for your people, and even if they sometimes feel like an inconvenience, accept the fact that this is the effort you need to make if you want to keep those people around.
Cancelling plans or refusing to put effort into your relationships based solely on how you feel in the moment, or on a reluctance to come off as a ‘people pleaser’, might seem like a healthy boundary, as therapy speak on social media pushes us to always put our own needs first and strive to be as independent as possible, but really it’s destroying your relationships and preventing you from forming a concrete and supportive community.
Of course, you’ll likely meet people in your life who will try and take advantage of your kindness or your willingness to help them, and it’s important to distance yourself from those people, but not everybody will treat you like that, and if you approach every relationship with the expectation that they will, you’ll miss out on a lot of amazing and fulfilling friends.
So, don’t let social media tell you that you don’t owe people anything. You owe them everything, just as they owe you. We’re social creatures; we need strong bonds and a good sense of community to survive. It’s so easy to get caught up in our busy jobs or stuck doomscrolling in a little bubble on our phones for hours, but we have to remember what’s most important to us.
Our people.
Society doesn’t value community as we used to, but that can change. All it takes is some effort. Offer to pick up your friend from the airport. Bring a hot dinner over to your neighbour who’s sick. Make an effort to meet up with your friends at least once a month. Ring your parents. Make small talk with the worker behind the till. Let your sibling know that something you saw today reminded you of them. Check in on friends you haven’t spoken to in a while.
There are so many ways to be a ‘good villager’, and the more effort you put in, the more effort you’ll get in return, because that’s how a healthy community works. We all depend on each other. Sometimes it might feel like an inconvenience, but nobody gets to live their whole lives without being inconvenienced. You’ll be surprised at how fulfilling making an effort in your social circles and communities actually feels.
Benefiting the lives of others will make you feel good about yourself. How we ever convinced ourselves that we need to drop this kind of mindset and choose every man for himself instead, I do not know, but you can change that by making little efforts every day that add up. And if you still don’t feel like you need to put in that effort, don’t expect a community to magically form around you, because it won’t.