050. Like-Minded

You do not choose your family. 

Some months ago, whilst I was in the midst of a fall-out with a friend, another friend of mine said to me, 'some people just don't know what it means to have a community'. At the time, I did not fully understand what she meant by that, but, that conversation opened a door for me to truly contemplate what it means to have a community. 

Lately, 'community' has become a buzz word of sorts. Everyone seems to be talking about building community. However, as we all differ, our needs from our communities do too. Of course, there are the basics - support and companionship. However, when it comes to like-mindedness, the true range of our differences presents itself. 

As social beings, we simply cannot go through life alone. In times when I have been feeling low, I learnt that other people's happiness can be contagious. If you are able to take yourself out of your own mind, you can find moments of peace and joy in the lives of those around you. If I were to experience those lows completely isolated, with my negative thoughts as the only thing to keep me company, those thoughts would only become the fuel to the fire that is my low state. Allowing it to burn me from the inside out. 

Unfortunately, the joy of others is not the only emotion our minds are capable of mirroring. As empathetic beings, if someone around us is feeling low, we too are just as likely to mirror that. Find sadness in their woe in order for us to find a way to empathise with them. This is needed. If we could not notice when someone around us was low, then we wouldn't know that they could benefit from a boost of positivity or time in silence. 

Without the empathy emotions grant us, we simply would not be able to support each other. When you learn how much impact other people's emotions can have on you, it can become easy to feel as though turning away can provide you escape from many low days, though, if we did that, then what value would our companionship serve. 

The best thing about family, is that it grants you automatic community. Though, when it comes to family, we do not always see eye to eye. The companionship may be there, perhaps even the support, but often, when we hear people saying that 'you do not choose your family', there are differences that being born into the same bloodline cannot resolve. Unfortunately, like-mindedness is not a genetic trait. 

When we go out into the world, away from our families, we are granted the opportunity to find like-minded people. If by chance those relationships survive the test of time, friends too can become family. Like-minded people who provide companionship and support, thus forming our community.  

Though our families shape us - in the ways we empathise and the things we choose to empathise with, we remain malleable. We get to decide the traits we want to extend to others, and the traits we are willing to mirror from them.  

As our emotions can be easily mirrored by those around us, the ways we learn to respond to those emotions can too. Those emotions shape habits, behaviours and traits. Behaviours and traits that can carry the same level of contagion as the emotions that shaped them.

We are who we are, but, we are not who we will always be. Every day, we are granted the opportunity to decide what emotions we will carry into our environment. Every day, we have the chance to choose which behaviours we are willing to mirror, and every day, we decide how much exposure we get with the contagion. 

So, no, we do not choose our family, but, we get to decide who we will call our family. 

I cannot fully say I have a grasp on what community is, but, one person cannot define what community is. A person can only provide a reflection of a community. So, when you look at your community, do you like the reflection that is shown back to you?

Fortunately, you get to decide how you feel.

So, dear reader, I hope this weekend is spent with people who give you warmth and leave you with a sense of gratitude. I hope you are back here next week, feeling well and rested.

It has been a beautiful week, and I have done my very best and all I could. 😊