What if belonging is something we build?

What does it mean to belong: to a city, a country, a community?

I’ve lived in five countries, called about a dozen cities home. I speak a smattering of languages, and if you ask about my ancestors, I’ll want to tell you the history of when borders were drawn and the impact of migration. Which is to say I don’t think belonging is simply about language or geography, about history or ethnicity. So often, it’s framed simply as a question of where we’ve come from. But what if it’s also a question about where we’re going? Belonging is about having a stake in a shared future. Belonging is also what helps us build a shared future.

I couldn’t stop thinking about this question… and now I’m writing a book about it!

In so many ways, this book was born out of a very tough few years in London. I thought I was doing it wrong, and I had no idea how to do it right: I was climbing the ladder as furiously and effectively as I could, but the ladder was an elliptical and I was stuck in place. I kept pushing harder and harder, and somehow, I remained stuck in the same place. Almost like I didn’t realise ellipticals don’t actually take you to the sky.

At the same time, I was lonely. I had community in the city, but we were all overwhelmed and stretched too thin.I couldn’t shake the feeling that life could be different. That my friends and I shouldn’t have to schedule dinners months in advance. That the life I was living every day should feel better than the life I presented to be living on social media. That there was enough opportunity and love and time and good ideas between us that we could all have a piece of the pie, and maybe bake a new pie together too.

But everyone was tired, and nobody was dreaming anymore. I kept trying, because I am someone who tries hard and doesn’t like to fail. I downloaded apps and went to book clubs and workout classes and events. But nothing I tried was sticking, and the answer always felt like another ticket, another membership, another something. Or perhaps, simply shrinking my expectations.

I hadn’t realised that I was far from the only one. Literally, in 2023, the World Health Organisation declared loneliness a public health concern. Did you know 100 deaths per hour around the world can be linked to loneliness? At the same time, worldwide, 70% of people are unwilling or hesitant to trust people different from them. And last year, 91% of people in the UK reported extreme or high levels of stress.

It’s easy to look at those stats and just feel a sense of impending doom. But I started getting curious. We talk about loneliness and burnout as if they’re individual problems. We talk about rising isolation, insularity, and economic stagnation as if they’re all entirely separate. But what if it’s all connected?

I have spent the last many years, in many ways my entire career, looking for models for how to design for belonging, and what possibilities that can unlock. From my first internship in microfinance when I was 19 to putting strangers in group chats ten years ago to talk about politics (and be published in a national newspaper for what they said)… and somehow I managed to facilitate a space that wasn’t just civil, but also constructive and friendly and just so deeply human.

In the last year, as I have begun to build a new chapter of my life, it’s no surprise that I’ve also found myself making choices in the direction of more robust infrastructure for community and belonging. Writing this book has been an opportunity to explore far and wide, and also look at my own life, to find models for inspiration. I made one of my best friends take me on a tour of her favourite video game, I turned to football pitches, to interviews from many years ago, to a friend who hosts monthly dinners, to history of mercantile coffee shops in London in the 1600s.

When I started looking, the models were everywhere.

There is so, so much more I have to say about this, but mostly, that if you feel like the system is broken and you’re trying everything and trying harder and still… this is for you. And if you’re looking for hope, and models that might work, this is for you too. Here is a link to pre-order the book.

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