How to Find a Simple Living Community

Living a handmade, simple life can be an uphill battle sometimes. It is a worthwhile lifestyle but finding community support and like-minded friends can make it easier and more rewarding. Despite the best self-sufficient ideals and goals, we all need a simple living community to turn to and support now and then.

Finding Commonality

It is so easy in our current culture to focus on differences rather than commonality. Stop that. Look for commonality and focus on that first and foremost. We don’t always have to agree on every point with our community members. We should be able to talk civilly with each other and agree to avoid the hot-button issues.

Find Local Interest Groups

Look for interest groups that speak to personal passions and try to join them. Join the beekeeping group or gardening group. Take a hike with the Audubon Society or participate in a community event. Use these opportunities to find people with common interests. These are great ways to gain and share expertise while building personal connections and even friendships.

Take a Class

Build skills by taking classes at local venues. Use this opportunity to meet and interact with other students and yes make friends. This is an opportunity to not only learn things to improve the personal homestead but also to find support in things that matter. This kind of support goes a long way into the building and maintaining of those skills within a framework of friendship that makes life feel better.

Online Communities

Actual person-to-person interaction is hugely important and often overlooked within the framework of social media. Still, social media can help us find simple living community. Look for Facebook groups, for example, centered around a common interest. There are no shortages of canning, livestock, homesteading, and other groups that can help us gain knowledge and community.

Cautions about online communities: avoid those filled with strife or other bits of chaos that is unsavory. Don’t allow them to become a time suck. Use communities to find and give support but not as a distraction from living life offline.

Encouragement for the Introvert

The extrovert simple living enthusiast might find building community enjoyable and easy whereas for the introvert this might all sound like some kind of torture. Introverts can and should be part of a community. This does not mean having to be active every night or constantly be surrounded by people. It does, however; mean that the realization that community builds everyone up and makes life less lonely in good times and bad. A little effort here can go a long way into building the simple life most desired.

Avoid the temptation and not easily attained ideal of total self-sufficiency and instead look to build a simple living community. A community of folks centered around shared passions and desires to build not only themselves but others as well. Use this community as a place to learn, encourage, and grow now and into the future.

How do you find simple living community in your area?

Thanks for sharing!