Sometimes we think feel okay being along.

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It seems like we are fine by ourselves.

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We can be very self-contained.

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And as long as we have our basic needs met, we don't need others.

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Yet as we live this way longer and longer, something begins to shift.

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We start to have a yearning for something different.

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As much as we are okay being along, we start to desire being with others.

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We want to be in another person's presence.

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Physical contact become a craving.

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Even just hearing another person's real voice in the room means so much to us.

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It is not because we are incapable of being by ourselves.

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This happens because by our very nature we are social creatures.

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We are pack animals.

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We thirst for companionship.

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This is why even the most independent of us still desire to be with others.

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It is inherent in our nature.

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So much so that our longevity is tied to how connected we feel later in life.

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The more people there are around us who actually know us and talk to us, the more we feel wanted, needed, and seen.

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There is something that being part of a community gives us that we do not get any other way.

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Not just a sense of belonging.

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More than a feeling of protection.

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It is our innate desire to connect and feel another person's presence.

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The warmth of their hand in ours.

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The twinkle in their eye when they laugh.

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We all desire it.

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On a very fundamental level.

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That's why tribes were created.

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It is why we so easily identify as part of an ethnic group, or a country.

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There's some sense of being part of a greater whole.

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Without it we feel something is missing.

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Yet sometimes that desire can be used against us or abused by those in power.

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The herd is not always right.

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Yet is feels better to be in the herd than apart from it.

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Because it is not about independence but interdependence.

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For we all feel that not only are we all connected, we thrive or struggle as a group.

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Societies are built up and fall apart because of that connection or the breaking of that connection.

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The key is to recognize that innate desire, yet be judicious in how we feed it.

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Being mindful and considerate of the community and our place in it can help us to know when it is the right community for us.

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What communities do you identify with?

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Have you connected with the others in that community lately?

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~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant