By Mayor Casey Ryan
Hello Troutdale! I hope your holiday season has been spent with friends and loved ones. The holidays for many people are a wonderful time of year to spend with family and friends who live near or travel from far away. But to many, the holidays are not as joyous and can be filled with loneliness and sadness.
I am currently reading a book, “Them: Why We Hate Each Other-and How to Heal” by Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. It has been a powerful and insightful book to read on the current state of culture in our country. Do you know “there is a growing consensus” by leading health officials that loneliness-not obesity, cancer, or heart disease-is the nation’s “number one health crisis”?
When I read this I was in absolute shock and disbelief.
Research demonstrates that loneliness is as physically dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and contributes to cognitive decline, including more rapid advance of Alzheimer’s disease. As Sen. Sasse says, “We’re literally dying of despair.”
One of the main reasons of this increase in loneliness is the loss of community, social and service groups.
Technology has given us more “friends” than we have ever had before through social media sites. Yet we are lonelier than we have ever been. People need family, community, face-to-face interactions, service groups, friends, and warm and friendly neighborhoods.
I write this to help encourage all of us to come together and be part of keeping Troutdale a warm and welcoming community. Let’s come together and make Troutdale the city with the least lonely people. Let’s make Troutdale known as the friendliest city in all the United States.
There are many ways of becoming a city that is not lonely but filled with friendly and community-minded people. Start by waving at your neighbors, introducing yourself to everyone in your neighborhood, join a city committee, join a service group (Kiwanis, Rotary, etc.), attend high school sporting events, the list can go on and on.
I hope that each of us who reads this can think of a way to reach out to a fellow citizen and introduce yourself and make a friend. Troutdale is a wonderful community and we as citizens need to work to keep it that way.