“Myself, if I had a place that I wanted to improve, I would never go interviewing the people that were leaving another place anyway. I would be more concerned with the positive, then the negative.”
I once watched a very successful company fall apart because management was not concerned with the negative. People were leaving and nobody asked why. Had they done a few exit interviews, management would have learned of a host of internal problems before critical mass caused the business to fail. But they were immersed in only the ‘positive’ and had no interest in problems that could have been addressed. In the end they were calling people and begging them to come back.
Information is the most valuable asset in any endeavor- a business, a farm, a family, a community. Finding out what doesn’t work, even in a different place unconnected to your own, can be valuable in avoiding the same mistakes. The alternative can mean learning ‘the hard way’.
When I was young, intentional communities were called communes. I never knew of one that succeeded long term. Different personalities, different visions, different goals (or approaches to those goals) lead to disharmony. Short term ‘internships’ work because people stay long
enough to get what they want from the experience without getting burned out from the oppressive nature of communal living. I would never want to feel my option for eating in solitude was to heat soup over a candle! Some humans thrive on chaos, most don’t. People need space, some more than others, to recharge.
About a decade ago there was a
local visionary who bought 50 acres to create an
intentional community. It was promoted heavily. He is still trying to
sell memberships. These things don’t work unless everyone is very attuned, and even then, most people change over time, and may not want what they did in the past.
Unless all the members are intent on a common goal, and happy giving over their lives to support that goal, it won’t work. Or, people stay but are unhappy.
That is also the flaw of worrying about what your friends and family think about you. That is no more a measure of success than what strangers think. I love my family, but have no desire for them to think I’m ‘cool’. I am my own person, and expect the same from family, friends and strangers. Be your own person, be a good person, and then your life succeeds. Needing to be ‘cool’ is
ego. I know many families where one of the partners is under the illusion that they are loved, when in fact the other feels ‘stuck’ for whatever reason. Sometimes this is due to a woman not having the courage to be a single mother (or a man to be a single father) or because a religion says it is wrong to leave the situation, or because a person worries they will be considered a failure if they don’t struggle to make something work, and they swallow their self esteem and live a life of silent regret. This is the ultimate sadness, because we only get one life, and it’s relatively short.
I don’t think the woman Paul interviewed needed mental help at all. Perhaps just the opposite- she was strong enough to know when something wasn’t working, and made the decision to be her own person and move on. And I also don’t see anything wrong with someone trying different things all their life, moving to different places, having as many experiences as possible. Not everyone chooses to plant themselves in one spot for a lifetime. We all dream differently, and that needs to be acknowledged and respected. Maybe the people who see that as ‘odd’ are in fact envious of those who dare to chart a seemingly rebellious
course?
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