The Importance of Community

The Importance of Community: Why Connection Is the Key to Fulfillment

A Disconnected Culture

Community is something that we all desperately need, but it feels like it’s become increasingly easy to lose sight of this fact. Despite connection being a core human necessity, isolation has been on the rise in recent years. In 2023, a Surgeon General Advisory highlighted loneliness as a national health crisis. In a Harvard survey the following year, 21% of American adults “reported suffering serious loneliness.” Perhaps not surprisingly, technology was the leading cause to which respondents attributed this country-wide issue.

It’s not hard to see why this is happening. With the advent of the internet and the subsequent pandemic, many of us turned to the digital world to find the human connection we could no longer get in person. Although the restrictions of the pandemic are no longer in place, the way we experience life—and socialize—never really went back to normal. People largely look for community online, and social media encourages us to think of connection as something that can happen alone, from the comfort of our own homes. There has also been a notable decrease in the number of third spaces, or public places to gather and connect. Even when people are out in public, they’re often so distracted by their phones that it blocks any chance to start a conversation.

Why Community is Essential in Life

Meaningful, in-person connection may be harder to find now. That doesn’t mean its importance has waned. Having a group of people that we feel we deeply belong to is essential for living a fulfilled life. We simply can’t thrive on our own.

Staying on Track

First, we need community because it offers accountability. When no one else knows about your goals, it’s easy to stray from them. When you’re alone, you’re left to rely on your own willpower, and there’s nowhere to turn when it gets hard. On the other hand, having a group that is working towards the same goals offers the encouragement and healthy peer pressure you need to succeed.

Being in the presence of others allows you to tap into more motivation. It’s simply much easier to do what everyone around you is doing. Visualize trying to run a marathon on your own. Then, imagine doing it with a group. It makes a huge difference, doesn’t it? Research has shown that having active friends increases the chances someone is an active person as well, and this effect also works with smoking cessation. People are much more likely to practice positive habits or achieve goals when they surround themselves with others working towards the same things.

Community impacts our physical well-being more directly as well. The Surgeon General Advisory on loneliness states that “social connection can influence health through specific biological pathways, including cardiovascular and neuroendocrine dysregulation, 

immunity, and gut-microbiome interactions.” That’s even more reason to pursue healthy relationships.

Accountability isn’t just about achieving some external goal or adopting a new habit, however. It’s also about the values and standards you uphold. We all need other people to call us out when we’re out of alignment. This is also why it's so important to surround yourself with the right people. We tend to adopt the behaviors and beliefs of whoever we see the most. It’s truly hard to underestimate the power of conformity, so choose your community with care.

Leaning on and Learning from Each Other

Support is another essential ingredient that community adds to our lives. Life inevitably sends challenges, and financial struggles, health crises, and emotional turmoil are unavoidable. Yet, community makes all the difference in how we experience and respond to these hurdles. A helping hand can make an insurmountable task feel manageable. A simple check-in from a friend can stop a bad moment from spiraling out of control. A shoulder to cry on can be the only thing that brings comfort in times of grief. Receiving support increases our well-being, but so does offering it to others. Being there for our friends and family adds meaning to our lives and helps us tap into our inner strength.

Another reason we can’t thrive on our own is that we need the wisdom of others. Nobody experiences life quite the same, so we need to hear from a variety of perspectives. This can help us cover blind spots, avoid pitfalls, and achieve our goals with more ease. By being exposed to diverse viewpoints, we can also uncover and correct our biases. In doing so, we drop judgments, alter our attitudes and behaviors, and make decisions that are more beneficial for all.

Most importantly, connection gives us meaning. Think back on your favorite memories. There’s a good chance that most of them were spent in the presence of your loved ones. That’s because connection is ultimately what makes life meaningful. A Pew Research Center survey found that family is a primary contributor of meaning for adults cross-culturally. Without deep relationships, life feels empty. That’s why it’s so essential to connect with others: it’s truly the most significant thing you can do.

Crafting Your Community

It’s clear that we need each other to live life to the fullest, but how can we find community in an increasingly isolated world? It might take a little more searching, but the opportunities are all around us. They simply require an open heart and the intention to connect. If you’re interested in building a stronger community in your life, here are a few places you can start:

• Join a local club or support group.
• Attend a class, lecture, or other public event.
• Volunteer somewhere, even if it’s just for a day.
• Search online for local interest groups.
• Start your own community by teaching a class, starting a club, or hosting a discussion group.

Don’t worry about feeling ready or finding the perfect fit. Just be willing to show up, be a friendly face, and make a genuine effort to connect.

Finding Others on Your Path

You can only travel with someone when you’re going somewhere. In other words, although connection itself is a wonderful intention to hold, it often works best when you pair it with a specific goal or interest. Finding people who are working towards the same thing makes authentic connection much easier. It can also be helpful to let go of an idea of what type of people you “should” be friends with based on your age, gender, or other aspects of your identity. Connection can cross demographic divides, especially when it is built around shared values.

Keep an open heart and mind. Our culture often pushes the idea of working on ourselves in isolation, but community is medicine for the soul. It may be harder to find or less popular to prioritize, but connecting with others is just as important now as it has always been. In a world that tells us to protect our own comfort at any cost, community is the cure for what ails us.