The Truth About Why You Are Here

Why are you here? Ask yourself that age-old question. And by here, don’t ask why you are alive, or why you exist. Why are you where you are right now?

Something brought you to this moment. You’re sitting at your computer, or somewhere holding your tablet or cellphone. You’re looking at a screen and wondering, " Why are you here?

The Answer

Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, it can be traced back to what appeared to be a sense of community. You’re here because you felt a pull to this, whatever it is, and saw yourself fitting in with the rest of those who are there as well.

What you found was a community. Community can be many things. In this place and in this time, community is as simple as finding like-minded individuals with whom you can share your thoughts, ideas, and dreams.

On a platform such as this, you are either looking for something online or you’re a lover of writing. You’re one of millions of people who found their way to a group of others like them. And there is an appeal to that.

The Problem

Community doesn’t always last. It has to be taken care of. People have to commit to it thriving as it can, and it has to continue to feel welcoming. They all feel welcoming at first.

The appeal, then the acceptance, then the benefit hit to make you enjoy that momentary rush of happy hormones. When something’s new and exciting, and you’re meeting new people and tackling something in a new and promising way, your brain’s on overdrive. It’s like falling in love.

Communities do fall, much like empires. The members of a community lose sight of how things work. New leaders rise and change things on fundamental levels. And as the world changes, the community that once rose looks more like a clique.

Broken communities forget why they were great to begin with. They leave some behind. They don’t pull everybody up. They forget the basics of what made the idea of community such a shining example of how to be.

The Solution

Looking at the world, it’s hard to think of community, as tribalism and self-serving leaders aim to keep people divided.

In Chicago, instead of teaching kids to read, the Chicago public schools bused kids to an event to use them as political pawns.

We spend a trillion dollars to bail out an industry in our country, only to be repaid by them making their goods so unaffordable that most people can’t buy what they sell.

Politicians enjoy private jets, and tell us we don’t have a right to see where our taxes are being spent, even though the law says we do.

There are two communities in the United States. One has about five percent of the country in it. The other, an increasingly broke 95 percent.

Bringing back the concept of COMMUNITY can fix that. Plainly, the powers that be can’t be depended on to provide the best world for us. We will have to do it for ourselves.

How do you help improve a community, rebuild it, and bring its members up with you?

Start here. Ask yourself, why did I come here? What were the things that appealed about this place, this task, or this idea? Remembering this, how many others came for the same reason?

Now, ask yourself what you can do to make the communities you’re a part of better.

Takeaways

Depending upon someone else to fix things in the world is a mistake. The leaders of this world aren’t overly interested in the masses, particularly in the United States, unless it’s an even-numbered year. However, if we remember the reasons for things, we can choose to focus on what we can do instead of what we can’t.

We’re all a part of a community. Even though those communities seem a little more broken and much less functional, they’re still ours to make great or to ruin. To fix them, we have to ask ourselves why we became a part of one. Then remember, we’re not the only ones who had that reasoning.

Remember the immortal words, the words that could have made the world better:

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!”

— JFK

Apply that to your community. When you first joined it, you likely had that zest for things. Along the way, things change. If you recommit to your community, whether it’s at work, at home, with friends, professional groups, hobby groups, or your local gym, you’ll know you rose above others and might have helped someone along the way.