Borrow a Cup of Sugar

Although I sometimes joke that my neighborhood is a bit like Leave it To Beaver meets Desperate Housewives, I am very, very happy with my neighbors. In fact, every day about 4 p.m., I get the urge to go outside and see who’s about. The kids are home from school, moms are doing yardwork, walking the dog, and/or chatting, and opportunities to get connected are everywhere I look.

Recent books — starting with Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam — highlight the shrinking social networks of the average American. We’re becoming less connected to our communities, at the same time we’re becoming more connected to our cell phones, Facebook fans and Tweeps.

Advice for making connections isn’t hard to find.  You could:

• Start a book club or a scrap booking group
• Join a gym
• Ask a neighbor to run or walk with you every evening
• Host dinner parties
• Have a block party

All are worthwhile suggestions. But I’d like to suggest you start small. So small it won’t feel like friend-making it all. Practitioners of the Kaizen approach to behavior change (read One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way) say the smallest changes are also the most effective, because they don’t make us feel anxious and out of sorts. Pushing way past your comfort zone may be so difficult and so unsettling that you give up before you see the benefits.

Big efforts also backfire because they aren’t easily — or regularly — repeatable. I love to throw dinner parties. But I don’t have the time to do so very often. Everyday interactions sustain connections. Once-a-quarter soirees do not.

If you’d like to feel more community connectedness, try these tiny tweaks.

• Go outside. Everyday. At the same time. For 10 minutes.
• Walk around.
• Say hello when you pass someone.
• Give a small wave.
• Make eye contact.

• Go next door and borrow a cup of sugar.
• Take an extra home-baked treat to the neighbor who gave you the sugar.
• Take another to a neighbor who didn’t.

The art of being neighborly hasn’t changed all that much since Leave It to Beaver, really. At least not in my neighborhood. What are you waiting for? Open the door.

 Image credit: SALT OR SUGAR II
© T-thaler | Dreamstime.com