46. Community is Built by Connection
January 30, 2026
I’ve been writing about the Third Quarter of Life (around ages 50-75) and have been sharing my ideas for how we can recognize this space as separate from simple “adulting.” Knowing it as a space for us to go deeper by focusing on our own calling, personal needs and instincts that have been perhaps neglected in the busy second quarter of life. In the early adult years, that is, the second quarter of life, from around ages 25-50, we need to focus on career and family and building ourselves into something useful that fits into the world. “Building the container” is how Richard Rohr referred to it in his book, “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.” As I moved into my 50’s, I felt like those components that had kept me grounded and focused were no longer as compelling. In speaking with many friends and colleagues, they felt the same. The burden had lessened as the kids moved on to their own lives. The career that had been so much a focus of time and energy started to show some cracks, patterns keep repeating, cycles are not changed, and we started to realize that we weren’t going to change the world like we planned to in our 20’s.
I’m offering this idea of recognizing the Third Quarter of Life, as many others are also discussing in the longevity space these days, as a renewal, a return to ourselves and a decision about how we want to live. I describe three foundational elements: Body, Community and Purpose, as the start. Today I’m going to talk more about Community. I remember once I was talking with a spiritual advisor-type person about how I had a book that I wanted to read and discuss with someone, but I could not find a group to do that. She said – a group is one other person. Just find one other person and that’s a community. That has helped me to understand how much I create the communities that I inhabit. They do not exist in the world in the form that I am seeking, so I must create them. Huge realization.
I hear many people in their 50s, 60s and 70s lament that they are lonely. The kids are off building their own lives, the connections we had from the kids being in school, in sports, have faded. With remote work, we may not have the connections we used to have with co-workers. We can welcome this as the opportunity to build the community we want, but it does take effort in a way that is new. I see “community” as an outcome of “connections.” It is the woven fabric around us of all the individual connections that we create.
I started to see connections as invisible threads that flow between me and any other person that I engage with and decide to hold. We don’t have the terms in the English language for the myriad of connections that we could have in our lives. I’ll refer to them all as “connections” though there are certainly many different types, intensities and lengths of connections. Building some understanding of these is a first step, and then perhaps the terminology will follow. For now, understand that community is built from connections. And connections are things that you can influence, impact and manage. Not always control but manage, invest in, care for and cultivate.
A few years ago, I started having “connections” as a specific goal, not as something that happens as I am doing other things. What does that look like? It will be different for each person. Here are a few tools that I have developed and have been using for a while.
First, I designate a day each week (for me, Wednesdays) as a connection day. My goal is to have a planned interaction with a person each Wednesday. Sometimes it’s a phone call, or a coffee or lunch date, or sometimes a text or email. It helps to have a day each week that I don’t miss, that I make an effort to connect with another person. I do, of course, have connections on other days as well, but I make sure to have one on Wednesdays.
Next, I started a list of my connections on my phone. People I enjoy talking with, who I want to stay in touch with and who I have exchanged energy with in some way over the past few years. My original goal was to have 365 people, so that if I end up earlier than expected in my “no-go” years, I would have someone I could call every day of the year, if I wanted to. That was a bit of an ambitious goal, but I do have 67 people on my list. It’s a wide range of family, childhood friends, classmates, former colleagues, former neighbors, etc. People who have stayed in my life, in one form or another, as my place changed. If I do not have anything local set up for my Wednesday connection, I’ll pull from this list.
Finally, over 5 years ago, I must have already been pining for more connection and needed evidence of it in my life. I bought a five-year calendar that has a month on each page. Each day is about a square inch. On days that I have connections with someone, I write their name on that date. Sometimes it’s seeing someone in person, or a phone call. I also include text exchanges, and social media engagement, if it felt meaningful. I started my second five-year calendar this July. I can turn to any month over the past five years and see a snapshot of the connections I have had. Some months are richer than others in terms of documentation, and that’s alright. There are no rules, it’s a tool to help me stay on the path I choose. Having grown up as an adult with a goal-oriented mindset, having these tangible activities has been a great help in growing my sense of connections in a way that is extremely satisfying.
I hope these ideas trigger some thoughts in you in terms of how you might build up your connection muscle. I still have goals for myself – one right now is to broaden the age span of my connections. Most are my age or older, and I recognize the risk in that as I age. I want to have more younger connections, and I’ll be thinking about how I can make that a reality. What goals do you have in regards to your connections?
