After Disney Land

I formed many friendships early on that lasted the test of time. Through family struggles, emotional highs and lows, and all the other challenges life brought, I had confidants I could dial up anytime to discuss anything. We all spoke the same language, understood each other’s perspectives, and most importantly, we listened.

Reality hit hard after we graduated from college and stepped out on our own for the first time. Those $3 expenses became $30, car notes jumped to $300, rent climbed, and then there were the student loan payments. We all hopped on party lines to talk about how we’d been sold what we jokingly called Disney Land. Life was not a small world, after all. Its residents seemed to care only about their own goals, what they wanted from you, and that was pretty much it. We’d assumed everyone was working together to improve the world, and our own naivety convinced us that all these new people in our lives were friends working with us. Then one day Johnny realized they were merely work, social, and religious acquaintances, ending his statement with when in Rome. We all agreed to follow his approach.

Several years later, I learned what we were seeing and feeling wasn’t a unique experience. Many of us had retreated into our inner circles—groups where we felt we belonged. At the time, none of us realized that we, too, were practicing othering. We also didn't realize others were doing the same to us.

For the past five years, I’ve been part of a book club that reads books addressing social issues. When we came across The Power of Bridging: How to Build a World Where We All Belong by john a. powell, we chose to read it. The praise on the cover states:

“Wise and visionary, powell helps us find the courage to forge connections with others, the earth, and ourselves in order to transform the world from the inside out.” —Valarie Kaur, bestselling author of See No Stranger and Sage Warrior

While I’m not too sure about finding the courage, I am certain, for the first time in my life, I read someone address challenges felt by a diverse group of people in such an easily consumable manner. powell, intentionally defines every term he uses in his framework to prevent misunderstanding. Like all sciences, those definitions serve as the baseline for agreement.

At its roots, powell outlines four concepts: belonging and bridging, and othering and breaking. In essence, each is a skill one can learn. In the United States, othering and breaking are typically learned by children out on the playground. I’m tempted to provide examples, but even the most seemingly minor scenario could be a traumatic childhood experience for someone—and that alone should help anyone understand how othering and breaking can become part of a person’s learned skillset. But hey, if you invited kids to your clubhouse and offered chocolate chip cookies (and no one was allergic to wheat, chocolate, sugar, etc.), then maybe you were already walking the path toward belonging and bridging.

In no way do I mean to say you need to own a chocolate chip factory or make these concepts seem simplistic—they aren’t. This is deeply rooted in human psychology. “The Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley advances groundbreaking research, policy, and ideas that examine and remediate the processes of exclusion, marginalization, and structural inequality—what we call othering—in order to build a world based on inclusion, fairness, justice, and care for the earth—what we call belonging.” john a. powell serves as its director.

If my friends and I had this information back then, we still would’ve run up our phone bills—but not because we were trying to solve problems we didn’t realize everyone else we knew were facing. If you read this book you will walk away with a new, practical sense and set of tools that can be used immediately to start bridging.

To my old pals, apparently the world was always small after all. We just needed to learn how to build a bridges with guardrails.