Are You a “Belonger” or an “Other”?

After a couple of falls and a hospital stay, my 94-year-old dad isn’t able to return to his assisted living apartment. He’ll stay at the nursing home when he complete his rehabilitation at the end of this month.

Sunday night in the hang-out room of the nursing home, “The Wharf,” Dad and I watched the baseball play-off game with the Texas Rangers trouncing the New York Yankees. During a commercial break, Dad debated whether his bet with me on the outcome of the World Series would be $5 or $20. We laughed, since he’s lost the last four bets we’ve made with one another.

Just as soon as the laughing stopped, Dad looked away, then turned to me and asked, “Where do I live?”

The curve of my heart pinched, but I answered.

“You live here now.”

He stared down past his feet in the pedals of his wheelchair, looked up and said, “Well, then this is where I belong.”

Belonging – a force to be reckoned with.

My Dad doesn’t have Alzheimer’s; he just gets confused.

Do you ever get confused about where you belong? Do you belong where you work? What groups of people do you belong with?  Is where you live where you belong?  Do you belong to the life you are living?

In the mid-1980’s on the island of Tortola in the BVI, checking through customs was a choice between two white-starched-shirt customs agents whose stations were identified by a one-word sign. One said “Belongers.” The second: “Others.”

There never was a time where I didn’t want to go directly to that “Belongers” line. Given the choice, belonging beckoned.

Belonging is a mighty journey we make throughout our lives and  – an essential one. William Glasser, an American psychiatrist and the founder of Reality Therapy,  identified five genetic needs that drive us:  survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun.

We don’t seek belonging lightly, we are driven to find it.  Our need for community is command central and determines the directional pull of our lives.  When we are not where we belong  – in the work we do, the people we do it with, in families or partnerships – life is diminished. And signing up for intramurals at the local community center isn’t a good fix.

Escape from a bad fit and a move toward true belonging is the only remedy.  But, let’s face it, sometimes we get stuck. Think about the last time you felt you didn’t belong?  Did you get away quick or go for a long drawn out ordeal? Given the opportunity, would you do it differently?

While sabbaticals are opportunities to take time out, disconnect and do some soul searching, likely you can already answer every question about belonging I’ve posed in this post.

So, you don’t need a career break or sabbatical to figure out the status of your belonging.  You need a sabbatical to create the plan to change things up with the intention of  finding the life where you belong.

Belonger status is a legal classification normally associated with British overseas territories. It refers to people who have close ties to a specific territory, normally by birth and/or ancestry. The requirements for belonger status, and the rights that it confers, vary from territory to territory.