🌱 Cultivating Gratitude for Community Living

By Ugo Dutil

Living in community is a rich human adventure, but sometimes a challenging one. A fundamental challenge is learning to appreciate what we have—even within a chosen, caring collective environment.

🤔 Dissatisfaction: A Silent Poison

Dissatisfaction doesn’t always stem from a real lack. It can arise in environments where everything seems aligned for happiness: nature, mutual support, shared projects. Yet the feeling of something missing persists. This dissatisfaction is often tied to our expectations, our need for control, or constant comparison with what could be better.

“You can be surrounded by beauty and kindness, but if your gaze is fixed on what’s missing, you won’t see any of it.” — Ugo Dutil (member of Cité Écologique)

🌼 Gratitude as an Antidote

Faced with this reality, a simple yet powerful path is to cultivate gratitude. This doesn’t mean denying difficulties, but rather recognizing what’s already present. Gratitude reconnects us to the present moment, to the richness of relationships, to the small gestures of daily life.

Suggested practices: • Take time to notice what’s working in the community.
• Express appreciation to others, even for simple things.
• Keep a gratitude journal to anchor this inner posture.

🧘‍♀️ An Inner Posture to Cultivate

Gratitude isn’t automatic. It requires conscious effort, especially in moments of tension or fatigue. But it transforms our perspective: instead of seeing what’s missing, we see what’s here. And that changes everything.

In a community, this posture is contagious. It soothes conflicts, strengthens bonds, and brings meaning to shared projects. It also helps us better embrace imperfections—our own and those of others.

🌿 Toward Relational Ecology

Gratitude can be seen as a form of inner ecology. It preserves our energy, our ability to cooperate, our joy of living together. In an ecovillage or any participatory habitat, it becomes an invisible yet essential pillar.

By cultivating gratitude, we don’t just change our mood—we transform our way of being in the world and with others. And perhaps that’s the true secret to a thriving community life.