The Ten Minute Activist
Easy Ways to Take Back the Planet
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
It's a commonly held belief that neighborliness has suffered under the atomization of modern life. Casual evening talk in the town square has been replaced by coarse discourse via the internet or television.
Locked up inside, we seldom find the time to connect with the people next door. Worse yet, studies by Carnegie Mellon University researchers suggest that time in the electronic environment increases people's chances of suffering from depression.
Take the time to create a neighborhood. When you move in to a new home, bake something for your neighbors. There's the old "borrowing sugar" routine, but you could also try offering to share something of your own. You could also try a little passive surveillance to discover what you and your neighbors have in common. Then contact them and bring up that interest. If you already know your neighbors, cement that relationship by inviting them to dinner.
Neighborliness not only helps us to be happier people, it can come in handy when problems arise. After all, it's a lot easier to talk about a problem if you already have a relationship established. Go get 'em, neighbor.
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