Oftentimes when we’re in need of some help, or a certain tool, we’ll call up a friend or family member who lives across town, or go to the store to buy something we might only need to use once. Instead of making these big, less effective efforts to fulfill a need, why not turn for help to the folks who live right next door?
One key aspect of manliness mentioned a few times here on AoM is developing your community and neighborhood. Marcus Brotherton mentions one of the elements involved in making this effort: “Being a good neighbor begins with a positive, proactive mindset.”
There’s a mentality in our culture that being a good neighbor means you don’t bother anyone who lives close to you. That’s passive neighboring, not good neighboring.
Being a good neighbor means you think ahead, initiate, and deepen relationships with those around you. It means you’re often the first one to knock on the front door. It means you’re proactive.
You might think that asking for favors would make you seem more annoying than neighborly, but consider what’s called the Benjamin Franklin Effect. When Franklin was a state legislator in Pennsylvania, there was a rival legislator that had badmouthed Franklin in a speech. Franklin understood that if he was to get anything done during his term, he’d have to work with this guy. To get in this grumpy gentleman’s good graces, Franklin did something counterintuitive — he asked his rival for a favor.
Franklin recounts what happened in his autobiography:
“Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.”
From this experience, Franklin coined the maxim: “He that has once done you a Kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”
Now, your neighbors hopefully aren’t your rivals, but even if they are, asking for a favor (as long as it’s fairly easy to fulfill) will actually kindle some warmth and foster a sense of community. There’s this odd sense of “Oh, I helped this guy, I think I actually like him.”
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