But, today, it seems every Tom, Dick, and Sally have taste-tested mindfulness with a side of psychedelics. And, yet, where and how we reside is still stuck in the time of Nixon as if we all are meant to be part of a nuclear family. Albeit, in “All in the Family,” we got a dose of intergenerational living with Archie, Edith, Gloria and Mike.
I was encouraged to read this recent NY Times article “Your Social Muscles Are Wasting Away. Here Is How to Retrain Them” about why co-living’s time has come and could serve as a way to stave off loneliness. What I found particularly helpful in this story were the three practices the journalist has created in their own intentional London flat – where three families live together. I’ve cut and pasted them here:
The first habit is to loosen your grip on your preferences. Living with other people has taught me just how particular each of us is. I have absurdly strong opinions about the design of mugs (chunky, large), décor (maximalist, dark wood, vintage) and how to store cheese — all of which, incidentally, are a gold mine for the market economy, which reframes these preferences as needs and sells shiny, perfectly tailored products to meet them. (This is how we get $300 custom cheese grottoes.)
Yet a community house does not seamlessly adapt to my desires. The friction arises over little things: Recently, I used leftover chicken bones to make stock for a slow-roasted tomato soup, leaving none for my housemate Hatty’s bone broth. We were both, briefly, pretty ticked off; I could tell from the way Hatty slammed the fridge door. In a million tiny ways, living with others means having to negotiate their preferences. It has also forced me to confront just how powerfully our culture discourages compromise.
Fighting for your own preferences is often framed as an almost moral act — a way to assert your autonomy or love yourself. After a long day of work and child care and cooking, having to clean up after myself immediately so someone else can use the kitchen can feel like an imposition. But with every passing year I live alongside others, I am increasingly able to call bull on that voice inside my head. I know now that the relentless enhancement of experience does not usually bring inner peace. Avoiding minor annoyances becomes addictive, and it can lead to a life perfectly optimized to our preferences, all alone.
The second principle is related, and is simply to prioritize relationships. Those lucky enough to be able to choose where they live often seek out more space, better public transit, a building or a neighborhood with charm. These things are not irrelevant. A terrible commute really will make you miserable. But proximity to friends and family often goes to the bottom of the list, especially in cities and in the first half of life. Social scientific research indicates that this is the wrong way around. While more space and more attractive surroundings might boost your happiness temporarily, you rapidly get used to them. Strong relationships, however, are closely correlated with lasting satisfaction and well-being. Many of us know this in theory. But being the one in the friendship group or family to suggest some sacrifices to be properly involved in one another’s lives takes courage. You will come off as intense. You may also find other people longing to live another way.
Our third and final principle is this: Be radically frank. Our house works much better when we express hurt or irritation quickly rather than seething silently. When my housemate Ramsey lopped off an ancient branch of wisteria rather than carefully training it, as I would have done, we needed to talk about it. I hated it. I wanted to withdraw and ignore the tension, to nurse my resentment rather than risk seeming like a scold. But after we talked, we knew each other better and felt closer.
For most of history, humans lived in small, settled communities of people who relied on one another and had to figure these things out. Now that we can put more space between us, we have forgotten how to have healthy conflict, to compromise, to prioritize people over preferences. We would do well to remember those skills, not just for our collective survival but for our flourishing. It will be uncomfortable. It will feel, initially, like straining wasted muscles. The gain, I have learned in my own life, is being part of a group of people who rescue one another when we’re drowning.
If this sounds intriguing to you, you might check out our January 15-18 MEA workshop, Golden Girls Homes, Santa Fe Style: Shared Homes, Shared Futures & a New Way to Live (we also have a second one April 2-5). As many of you know, we’ve purchased two homes – one a 6-bedroom home and another a 3-bedroom home – very close to our four-square-mile MEA ranch campus to create a new form of MEA homes. Maybe one of your New Year’s resolutions is to consider a new way of living?
-Chip
P.S. Here’s an intriguing, recent The Atlantic article entitled “The New Singlehood Stigma Society tells us we should have a partner—but we shouldn’t want one” that speaks to the cognitive dissonance many midlife and later singles feel especially around the holidays.