I don’t have to be local

On my Goals page I have a running one to ten rating for each of what the 12 Week Year calls the “six areas of live balance.” Community is always my lowest. Right now it’s at a three out of ten.

I’ve always felt guilty about not being more involved in my local community. I don’t pay attention to what my neighborhood is doing. I don’t care about local sports teams. I don’t spend Saturday mornings hanging out at the farmer’s market. I’m a bad community member, I thought.

Then I read this post by Derek Sivers.

[…] When I’m local-focused, I may be useful to my community, but I’m not being as useful to the rest of the world.

So I’m finally admitting: I’m not local.

I feel equally connected to many places. Just because I live in one place now, that doesn’t mean I should ignore the others.

Derek Sivers

That made it click for me: communities don’t have to be local. And I don’t have to be focused locally to be a good community member.

com·mu·ni·ty (noun): a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

Oxford dictionary

Turns out, I’m a community addict. I love work communities: book clubs and guilds what not. I hang around a little Slack community where folks talk about the people and process sides of work. I’m into a few niche reddit communities. I spent many years in the Drupal community. I write blog posts and record podcasts and I’m trying to build a tiny community around those.

My three rating is too locally focused. I thrive on communities. So as Derek said: “I’m finally admitting: I’m not local.”