I’ve recently rejoined IPPA and renewed my membership with INPM. I’m also a member of a writer’s organization and I volunteer for our local animal shelter. I choose to restructure my time and attendance to what matters most to me.
What do you do to invest in your self? Do you become a member in order to feel a sense of belonging? Do you feed your social brain with memberships?
Introverts can become socially isolated. We like being socially isolated more than than not. Memberships round out and balance our personal/professional lives.
We work to contribute to society in some meaningful way. Some of us work to make fame and fortune a priority, while others still, want to be in the service of others. Personal choice with no judgement. We must do what’s best for us.
Belonging
We all know that a sense of belonging is more than just having people in our lives. It’s having trusted people who understand us. It’s having a feeling of ease, of comfort and maybe even love, in our lives. We have to feel like we belong somewhere. It’s part of being human.
What’s relatively new to being human is how we rank ourselves in relation to our memberships, our sense of belonging. We want to be part of what Jeff Bezoz called, ‘tribes’ in his 1998 book.
Our sense of professional belonging is exactly as big as our financial ability to belong there. Perseverance funds for those who are truly invested personally, but unable to join financially. If your organization doesn’t have this, I hope you’d consider it.
You pay a bit more into that pool so one day, someone truly worthy but financially challenged is in need of a hand up, you will be there for them. The other important part of membership. Helping others. Once, I was given this hand. Now, I contribute to it.
Investing
When you become part of a membership of an organization, club, or charity, you are investing in yourself. They, hopefully, are investing in you as well. That’s the whole point of becoming a member of anything outside of our home lives.
We can volunteer. It costs nothing. Just time. My entire summer was spent raising homeless kittens for a local shelter. I invested in them. In return, the kittens saved me in so many ways. Invaluable.
Some people don’t see the value in sheltering animals. Others find their humanity there.
I invested in myself by choosing three organizations that I can grow with as a professional. We feel more productive when we take time to put love and attention into the development of our humanity.
Membership is Self Love
In order to feel complete, we have to complete ourselves.
No other being, human or other can do that for us. We have to invest our time, emotions, intellect, wisdom, ability to stay open to learning, curiosity and creativity in places that will give us a collective consciousness.
We are strong alone. We are stronger in groups. Like minded specific groups are worth the investment. The combined knowledge? Priceless.
Peace and Love,
Karen
Author: Karen Henry [Daly], MA CRM owns Henry Healing as a holistic well-being practitioner and writer. She’s a former university professor and current scholar practicing the infusion of holistic healing and positive psychology.