All of us like to feel included, we need to feel wanted, that feeling comes together in a community when everyone strives to be there for one another! Got to witness it yet again…! Sharing my experience!
While we all have our individual likes, dislikes, personalities, there is an aspect of co-existence that comes in play when we are in a group! Some of us have talents that does not come to the limelight in normal situations. However, when someone picks up those talents and showcases them – it feels great!
Communities that I have had the opportunity to witness coming together for various causes over the past few months
- Religious communities – Temples, Churches, and the like. Many have their own groups on FB and whatsapp
- Prayer groups – Multiple forwards of a nice prayer / verse a day across religions – you do not know which one would lift your spirits on any given day!
- Local business communities – Be they on nextdoor, FB, or ethnic – most of the communities have their buyers/sellers forming core groups. Good network.
- Women leaning in across multiple small groups – This is a huge difference between men and women in my circle. Men seem to prefer phone conversations and women are quite comfortable virtually connecting and being part of different groups.
- Clothes and apparel makers – Many of them are facing closure! Some have started new and waiting to launch soon!
- Arts and Crafts sellers – This year has been slow! The overall morale in these groups are low! Would be great to promote them!
- PTOs – School wide PTOs, activity level PTOs, club PTOs, am constantly amazed by their creativity and ideas to keep the community together and well-informed!
- Mask making groups – What started as mask making is growing into larger communities! Kudos to them!
- Mothers – Everyone needs help and the way mother share their frustration, laughs, and deal with their emotions while multi-tasking their roles during the day is AMAZING! Hats off moms!
- Office colleagues – Work keeps many busy and many others have found that extra time to learn another skill from a different genre – be it cooking or baking or taking classes!
- Friends from different walks of life – One thing we all realize is that COVID has brought what we have been neglecting for too long, to limelight and making us deal with the scenarios in our personal lives! Every individual seems to have a story behind how COVID made a difference in their personal life!
- Apartment communities – It feels like running mini-organizations, planning from security protocols to communicating and implementing procedures across the board, partnering with vendors and utility providers – huge task at hand and great automation in this space!
- School and activity groups – Fundraisers and events planning is amazing! Adaptability gets tested significantly in these groups 🙂
- Food lovers groups – My Zen zone 🙂 what amazing creations..! reminds me… I need to go and cook!
- Learning groups – Seeing kids learn and understand what you intend to teach is simply heart-warming! Proud of students all over who try to learn and grasp and inspire us back!
- Charity for a local cause groups – Diwali clothes donation recently was a major hit in the local community! Two truck loads… extent of planning and work that goes behind the scenes – no one would get to know! Proud of you BPA!
- Food delivery groups – They make life simpler for many of us!
- Music lovers groups – Constant source of inspiration!
- Writing (and blogging…) groups – When you do not know if anyone resonates with your ideas or point of view, this is one group that comes together and makes it meaningful 🙂 Thank you!
- Fitness and Exercise groups – Friends who push us to continue walking, exercising, dieting, competing, nudging us along the way! Makes a HUGE difference!
- …. and many many more
Without all of the above, past few months would have been EVEN MORE tough to handle!
When we virtually interact with each other from across the world, it feels nice to be part of something big! Whether I motivate them or I get inspired and motivated by them seems to be a fine line to cross 🙂 There is a mutual respect, an ability to co-exist, an aspect of diversity, inclination to be inclusive and an overall sense of belonging that is needed to come together! Every interaction with every group has a hidden story waiting to be told! Would love to share these over the next few weeks!
Have you tried to mingle virtually with anyone – especially during the past few months? How has your experience been? Have you been part of any of the groups above? What other groups are you part of? Share about yourself! There are others who can get some tips from the same!
