Social and Community Wellbeing — Why They Matter (Part 1)

Family, friends, and your community play a vital role in your own wellbeing.

The year is 1987. An Indian man in his early twenties lands at JFK airport, New York City. He flew there on a ticket paid for by a bank loan. He has to make his way to Montana where he’s starting an engineering master’s. It’s his first time in America.

When he finally reaches Montana State University, the dorms are closed. He’s out in the cold, with his luggage. He knows no one.

A group of fellow Indian students spot him from the corridor window and offer to help. They let him crash on their floor for the night. He’ll collect his keys tomorrow.

That man is me.

I often recount this anecdote as if it were symbolic of America - or least of the America we see in movies: the land of plenty; the land of opportunity; the land where people will always offer to help others in a difficult situation. But the more I think about it, the more I realise that this story is, really, about community; about the silent but tangible social bonds that exist between members of a same group.?

Students. Immigrants. Indians. It’s no coincidence that it was them who lent me a helping hand. It was because they saw themselves in me, and I saw myself in them.

The philosophy of Wholistic Wellbeing that underpins RoundGlass recognises the importance of Social Wellbeing and Community Wellbeing. Sociability is not only a foundational pillar of modern civilisation; it’s also a prerequisite for human happiness.

Granted, we hear platitudes like this all the time. ‘Humans are social animals’. ‘People need people’. But how often do we actually stop to think for a moment about what Social and Community Wellbeing are really about? What do they really mean? And what do we need to do to optimise our wellbeing in these aspects of our lives?

These questions are getting harder to answer in the aftermath of a pandemic that has redrawn the rules and customs of social interaction. Isolation has become the norm; going out has become a luxury; travel is a forbidden fruit; meeting new people feels strange, frightening even; and we are more reliant on technology than ever before.

The pandemic has all but accelerated a trend that was already there: with the advent of social media in the past fifteen years, social and community wellbeing have taken a noticeable hit. What’s more, the harmonisation (read: westernisation) of cultures, resulting from decades of globalisation, has all but erased certain customs and the communities associated with them. What globalisation does on paper is very different to what it does in reality.?

We need to reclaim Social and Community Wellbeing. We cannot have Wholistic Wellbeing without them.

Solid Social Wellbeing strengthens our relationships with the people closest to us. Strong family ties and friendships bring us security, support and happiness. A step up from Social Wellbeing, Community Wellbeing teaches us altruism, generosity, and self-awareness, as we become conscious of our place within something larger, greater, beyond ourselves, and learn to see ourselves through the eyes of others.

My mother always told me: “Aap bure taan jag bura, aap bhale taan jag bhala” - be good and others will be good to you, be bad and expect the same. It’s a typical Punjabi proverb; and while my mother often used it to discipline me, the truth of the saying reverberates deeply in my understanding of Social and Community Wellbeing. That’s what they’re really all about: respect, compassion, and benevolence.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my story coming out on Medium on Friday.