You're part of something bigger. 

Connect with your community, your city, the world. Isolation breeds perfectionism; community creates resilience. When you're imagining your home, think about how your homestead will interact with other people, and give time to that process.

I've met people who want to disappear - to be utterly self-sufficient in a rural area, to live completely outside "the system," believing the way to improve the world is to make their footprint almost invisible, and to be untouched by a difficult world. In fact, a couple of years ago, in our street, all the members of one church group actually did decide to completely disappear.

While it’s natural to have perspectives on things, and to want to do better, there’s also a danger of becoming cynical as we get better at what we do. This is not specific to homesteader-types. It’s just hard to connect with our neighbours if we get too attached to a certain way of life that we’re convinced is absolutely right. That is, if we’re too deeply attached to our homesteader or [fill-in-the-blank] identity.

As I've spent more time homesteading, I've felt more deeply that we are all connected, and these connections mean we cannot grow alone. Suffering anywhere affects us all. Excessive consumerism by segments of the world’s population affects us all. If we can improve our own sustainability practice by 50% but help 100 others improve theirs by 10%, the collective impact is much greater than achieving 100% perfection in isolation.

I don't think we're meant to decide on one answer to the world's problems and simply act on it alone. I think we're meant to make slow progress together - to try something for size, practice, improve, then invite someone else to take our practice one step further. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions, and we certainly haven't found the perfect way to live.

When we find beauty and peace and share it, it grows.

For example, we are linked to many of our neighbours: we have a door between our neighbours and us and our kids can move freely between properties, another neighbour comes over to study maths with my dad, one neighbour has overseen many of our building projects. Another lent us their car when we were without one. Another has taught our son magic. And so on, and so on. Living shoulder-to-shoulder to a low-income neighbourhood has also enriched our lives rather than detracted from it.

As we choose and accept our place in the world, with its limitations and our own blind spots, we are less concerned with individual achievement and more concerned with connection and growth.

Here’s to striving together for better. Have a great week. Tell me about your connections, I’d love to hear!

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