Do you know anyone without problems? No? Me neither. We all have them. Some small – you know you are struggling to remember that pin or password. Some larger – how to pay that bill or how to deal with an ongoing relationship issue. Some huge, daily or weekly visits to a clinic for treatments of serious illness or facing financial hardship forcing hard decisions.

Our generation, my generation, has grown up in an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity. This is not a truth that I was aware of for many years. Often I just assumed that is how life was supposed to be. But as I became more aware of history and became more aware of our current reality it became increasingly clear that we lived in a bubble of time. Not that there aren’t difficult times, there are. The pandemic was a hard time for many – mental health, employment, finances, relationships and isolation suffered.

And what keeps the reality of peace and prosperity going? In a word, US. We who vote, who choose how to spend our money, where we go and how we work. We choose in how we treat people. I’m convinced that the most needed thing in the world right now is a commitment to civility.

The other day I was a Costco….a dangerous place for anyone with a card. I was checking out with just a few items and I found myself in a line with a woman in front of me who was riding in a powered shopping cart. She was clearly elderly and having trouble with both mobility and vision. She was helped very much by the employees there and I was happy to see that. She paid for her purchases and went on her way.

Then it was my turn….and off to the parking lot.

When I went to put my purchases in the van I noticed that in my cart was a large bottle of pills – a supplement for clear thinking. It was a big blue bottle and I immediately checked my bill to see if I had been charged for them. I had not.

It suddenly dawned to me that it probably belonged to the woman in front of me. I figured that it had to be that woman’s purchase. I looked for her and of course, she was over in the wheelchair parking and when I approached her she had indeed bought it. How it got into my cart is a bit of a mystery but she was happy to have it. As I was about to walk away she thanked me for being honest.

It isn’t hard to work to preserve civility. Just be kind, be respectful, be aware of the needs of others.