Great Escape Podcast episode 14 - A Little Escape on community

- This is the Great Escape Podcast, episode 14: "A Little Escape" with thoughts on community.
- Several of my podcast guests recently, and some that you haven't heard yet because they're in upcoming episodes, have talked about the importance of being in a community; of having friends and family who they can talk to, who they can explore ideas with, who can encourage them, who can hold them to account or even criticize them. And that's had me thinking quite a lot about when I've been happiest in my life is when I've been in relationships with people, not necessarily big, serious relationships, just relationship, friendship or whatever it is; that have been positive and uplifting, sometimes challenging. But rarely sort of blindly critical. And the times when I've felt worst, especially times where my mental health has been at its worst; have been the times when I've been incredibly alone, even in the midst of a crowd. And part of that is my own doing, when I'm feeling down I tend to isolate myself. But part of it is when you're in a community of people who aren't there for you, they're there for themselves. And it's difficult to be there for everybody else all the time, because we all need to be there for ourselves sometimes and we need other people to be there for us sometimes. But when we are with truly narcissistic and truly selfish people, that is just negative for everybody, really. In a proper community, whether it's a family or a group of friends or a group of work colleagues or even just people working on a project together temporarily; if we are there for one another, encouraging, exalting, lifting, chastising when necessary, pointing out when one of us isn't carrying our share of the load; those are the times when we feel connected and connection. Those are the times when we get the most done, those are the times when life feels the most fun. And as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland is announced today, it does seem that the world is becoming more and more isolated. And the irony of that is that at a time when we are deeply connected to one another, it's entirely possible to be apparently in the middle of nowhere and still send Facebook messages and text messages to all of your friends thousands of miles away. But actually, we're less connected to people in the ways that matter, we're less connected in deep and meaningful ways. It's very easy to make trivial connections, to be talking about the latest reality TV or what's going on with the latest celebrities who are famous for nothing other than being famous; than it is to talk about things that are really troubling us or the things that we're really happy and excited about. So my thought for today for all of us, is how can we make better connections with the people who will support us and cheer us on, and whom we can support and cheer on in ways that are properly meaningful and not just trivial and superficial. As always, if you've enjoyed this "Little Escape", please do like, share, send me a message @stuartlmorris on Twitter and Instagram, [email protected] and if you want to see previous episodes, go to greatescapepodcast.com/episodes. Let me know what you'd like us to cover in future episodes and if you've got particular feedback for one of the guests. Again, email it to me and I'll pass it on, or look at the show notes for that episode. There will usually be contact details for them there. Follow the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify and I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Talk to you next time.