Inconvenience is the price we pay for community

Imma try to give the full breakdown of this statement because it's popping off a bit but by itself Its probably true.

but

Inconvenience should be matched with an equal or greater intensity of positive feelings and consequences. You shouldn't be pouring into something that gives you less back .

A financial example ,

your cohousing group decides to order a farmers market food box but the shipping comes 4 hours late once every 2 months.

It is inconvenient that you have possibly have to skip that meal if you planned to use stuff from the box but you also get to have a slight discount and high quality fresh ingredients for alot of your meals.

A social example , your dead tired from work but remember you have dinner plans with a friend from out of town. It is inconvenient to show up when your tired but also this person doesn't come around often. You can probably deal with the tiredness later and try to be present for your friend

Youre dealing with a INCONVENIENCE to enjoy much greater benefits.

It starts to get toxic when you feel like you can't say no at all or you have genuine money/ time pits. Also when you feel like you can't inconvenience other people

A financial example

Your mortgage in cohousing doubles but youre not honest about it being tough on you because you think the community should come first.

A social example

you're speeding through traffic and catch a ticket because you don't want to be 15 mins late to meeting your friend from out of town

But also you should appeal to social norms and human emotions too.

Example , If you have a baby most people understand not showing up to as many things as you used to but you can't expect to have the same level of friendship if you went from hanging out every weekend to showing up once every 2 years.

you have to make some effort to showing up for your friends. This is different from naturally growing apart ,which is sad but inevitable over the years.

Another theoretical fair application for this principle could be economics. In a perfect world , if everybody paid into services that benefitted everybody then

1. the services would be cheaper on average per person

2. People that need the services the most would benefit the most from the cheap average price

   Example medical insurance , housing , food , internet etc....

The best example is public college.

Everybody pays into their local college with their taxes. Not everybody goes to college. But because everybody is paying on average the tuition is lower ( at least if your in state )

Theres arguments to be made against public college for sure but it's better for ALOT of communities to have some type of pipeline to college.

But yeah

To sum it all up there are TONS of ways to be selfish with your own time and money but a little inconvenience ( not major drains on your life ) can go a long way to improving the world around you.

Until next time 😎

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