Resident Feels Sense Of Community In Laurelhurst

A Blog reader would like to share a commencement address she read that reminded her about the community feeling of Laurelhurst she has experienced since moving here several years ago.
 
She writes:

When I got married and moved into my husband’s house in Laurelhurst several years ago, I did so reluctantly, knowing little of the neighborhood and assuming that it was not as diverse, urban or community-oriented as the neighborhood where I lived. 

Here I have found people who create a place where neighbors help one another, rally to support the school, churches, parks, beaches, streets and one another—person to person and family to family.  Neighbors help one another raise their kids.   

There even is a group that created a blog to keep us all aware of one another and issues that affect us. When I read the commencement address, it made me think of experiences in Laurelhurst, the role people play in the place, and the place plays in the people. 

Here is a part of the speech given by Atul Gawande, at the University of North Carolina:

The only way life is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater: a family, a community, a society. 

One thing I came to realize after college was that the search for purpose is really a search for a place, not an idea. It is a search for a location in the world where you want to be part of making things better for others in your own small way. It could be a classroom where you teach, a business where you work, a neighborhood where you live. The key is, if you find yourself in a place where you stop caring — where your greatest concern becomes only you — get out of there.