Photo: Stock Exchange/Carrots in Plastic Bowl

Accepting job offers when I was afraid led me to the worst jobs of my life. I make bad decisions when I feel scared, vulnerable and lonely.

Other painful decisions included living with incompatible people in joyless households. At other times, living alone with my joyless self. Depending on the circumstances, bouncing back from regrettable decisions is possible.  Sometimes, however, people dig a deeper hole, leaving worse decisions in their wake. Feeling stuck and seeing few options is not an empowering stance.

Participating in an aware supportive community can inoculate against the isolation that is common for many and that sets the stage for loneliness and wacky behavior.

People talk a lot about community, and yearn for it too. For people who have not experienced it, “community” may as well be fairy dust. Some neighborhoods have figured out the light touch that creates it. A community garden and a dog park is the magic combination that transformed the neighborhood near Clark and Devon into one of friendly helpfulness.

A genuine community experience means knowing people well enough to be able to share a confidence, trusting that they will be compassionate, non-judgmental, and keep their mouths shut about your business. Time, trust and non-judgment are the key elements. First, you spend enough time together to share something important. Also, you trust the other person enough to be vulnerable. The willingness to be vulnerable is the pay dirt where relationships and souls thrive. Without it, people skate on the surface talking about sports, weather and politics.

Although community gardens and dog parks are splendid neighborhood anchors, we need tools and methods that we can replicate. Many people don’t garden and many don’t like dogs. I am beating the drum for community development initiatives for every community in which no one is left out. The Transition Town movement that began in England in 2006 and spread worldwide is alive and well in Rogers Park. Transition Rogers Park has one community garden in place and another one, including funding! on the drawing board. Hands-in-the-dirt gardeners, please dig in, so to speak. We need Transition Towns in every neighborhood and hamlet.

The point is: going through life without a support network that you can hug and hugs you back, can lead to serious trouble. As we deal with the external heart break of homeless adults begging for change, natural disasters from which we have not yet recovered—Katrina, Haiti, Pakistan, horrifying wars, and more—we also feel helpless seeing family members and friends suffer in this wretched economy. Now would be a good time for solace. The place to find it is in each other.

New Community Vision is collaborating with Transition Rogers Park, Sound ConneXions and Mindful Metropolis to support the shift to connected, sustainable lifestyles where we naturally comfort and connect with others and to our environment.