52 Weeks of Neighboring - 5/27

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Develop your love for your neighborhood by writing down 3 things each day that you like about your neighborhood.

Greetings friends! Can you believe June is almost upon us?

After reading this week’s tip, you may be asking yourself, “How does practicing this experiment help us to become better neighbors?”

The first step to becoming a better neighbor is simply to love your neighborhood.

And we have a secret for you. The most common trait of people who love their neighborhood is that they have decided to love their neighborhood. Hold onto your keyboards - that was a thunderbolt of neighboring wisdom! Loving your neighborhood doesn’t always come easily. We mistakenly think we’ll love our neighborhood when it is right/perfect/ideal, when in fact, we’ll love our neighborhood when we seek to love it! 

It’s really easy to see the negative in our surroundings. Conversely, it is often harder to see the positive aspects. No matter what neighborhood you live in, this statement holds true. Because we’re not trained to seek out the positive, it takes both intentionality and practice, and that’s where this week’s neighboring tip comes in.

We encourage you to experiment with this tip for a week. At the end of each day, write down three things that you like about your neighborhood. Keep this list in a central place, such as a journal or on your refrigerator. This is also a great tip for families to discuss together - maybe a dinner table conversation starter. By the end of the week, noticing more positive aspects of your community will hopefully come more naturally. Seeing these positive aspects will then help you cultivate a love for your neighborhood.

 “We don’t love a place because it’s beautiful, a place is beautiful because we love it.” - Matt Johnson (but he may have heard it somewhere)

Happy neighboring!