Tuesday, Sept 16, 2025

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we interact these days, how quickly conversations (online or in person) can turn sharp, judgmental, fractious, even hostile. We’re quick to spot flaws in others while missing the ones in ourselves. It’s like living in a neighborhood where every fence is taller than the houses, and we only peek over now and again to criticize.

We all know what happens when rocks start flying. Suddenly, the neighborhood stops feeling like a community. We fiercely protect our own yards, we retreat, we lose connection. We become convinced our neighbors get a better deal than we did, or want us out of the neighborhood, or worse.

We fear.

Sometimes words even say aloud what’s awful to hear. While words can sting, inflame, even wound emotionally, they are a bit like the weather in our neighborhood — sometimes gusty, sometimes stormy, sometimes just heavy clouds passing overhead. We notice them, maybe take shelter, maybe get wet, but the neighborhood endures. Awful actions, on the other hand, are a storm in full force, tearing off roofs, shattering windows, leaving destruction in their wake.

In a free society, violence is never an acceptable response to speech.  Political violence must be condemned.  Every act.  Every time.

Our children are watching. They repeat what they see, often in ways that startle us. Some of the things they hear (and some of the things we model) teach lessons about anger, judgment, and division before they even understand the world. If we want civility to survive, we have to tend it carefully, starting at home, in ourselves.

We have to teach it, too.

What would happen if we made it our mission to practice small acts of restraint and respect? What if, when our phones buzzed with another outrage, we looked up instead? What if we remembered that the person on the other side of the conversation isn’t an enemy, but a human being worthy of dignity? What if curiosity came before condemnation?  What if we cranked our listening and persuasion dials up to 11, and turned the outrage and fear dials down low?

Even here, it’s easy to fall into the trap of “yes, but” or “what about…?” Those thoughts, while seemingly reasonable, are not helpful.  They’re not effective.  They often keep us locked in judgment and defensiveness. They magnify problems in others while shrinking those within ourselves, and they can lead us further down the path of neighborhood violence, blurring the line between critique and condemnation. It’s the difference between seeing a weed in our own garden and shrugging it off, while magnifying every weed in our neighbor’s — the same problem, yet treated entirely differently.

Civility isn’t about silence or agreement. It’s about noticing our own impulses before acting on them. It’s about putting down the phone, stepping back, and asking how our words — as well as our inaction — affect the world around us. It’s about remembering that the measure of a society is not just how it treats those we agree with, but how it treats everyone.

We don’t need grand gestures. We don’t need perfect behavior. We need only to remember our humanity and nurture it daily, like a garden. Tend your own soil first, pull the weeds in your own thoughts, and let the world see patience, curiosity, and respect grow.

It’s less about making a plan to clean up an entire block just yet.  It actually starts by focusing in close on your own home improvements.  Then, maybe, it’s time to offer to help a neighbor.

Small choices matter. Every conversation, every post, every gesture is a chance to choose civility over division. If enough of us do it, perhaps our neighborhoods (real and virtual alike) can feel like a place worth coming home to.

Until Next Time,

Mary Schuster
Chief Knowledge Officer
October Research, LLC