I was listening to a podcast during my morning walk this week when the guest was asked about the most meaningful lessons she had learned over the years.
She shared several phrases that had shaped her life, each one carrying its own wisdom.
Then she smiled and said the most important one wasn’t really a phrase at all.
It was a single word.
We.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since.
Such a small word. Just two letters.
Yet the more I sat with it, the more I wondered if it might be one of the most transformative words we can choose to live by.
We spend much of our lives being taught to become independent. To work hard. To provide for ourselves. To chase our goals. To protect what we’ve earned. There is certainly value in all of those things.
But somewhere along the way, it’s easy for our perspective to become centered on a single question.
“What’s best for me?”
What if we asked a different question?
“What’s best for us?”
That one small shift changes almost everything.
Every decision we make reaches farther than we often realize.
The words we choose during a conversation.
The patience we offer a stranger.
The kindness we extend to a cashier who may be having the hardest day of her week.
The phone call we make to an aging parent.
The encouragement we give to someone who’s quietly struggling.
The way we drive.
The way we vote.
The way we spend our money.
The way we care for our neighborhoods.
None of these decisions happen in isolation.
They all ripple outward.
I’ve often written that our existence speaks to our importance. Maybe this is one of the reasons why.
Because none of us exists alone.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, our lives are woven together. Every act of generosity strengthens the fabric. Every unnecessary act of cruelty weakens it. Every time we choose compassion over convenience, patience over frustration, or understanding over judgment, we make the community around us just a little stronger.
Perhaps that’s what “we” really means.
Not simply a collection of individuals living near one another.
Not people who all think alike.
Not people who share the same backgrounds or beliefs.
But people who recognize that our lives are connected.
That your well-being and mine are not as separate as we sometimes imagine.
When one person hurts, the community feels it.
When one person serves, the community benefits.
When one person chooses hope instead of bitterness, the people around them are often changed in ways they may never fully know.
We like to imagine that history is shaped by extraordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Sometimes it is.
More often, I think history is quietly shaped by ordinary people making ordinary decisions that place we ahead of me.
A neighbor who checks on another neighbor.
A teacher who stays after class.
A volunteer who gives up a Saturday morning.
A son who visits his mother.
A friend who listens without trying to fix everything.
Small moments.
Ordinary choices.
Quiet reminders that we belong to one another.
Maybe that’s the real power of this tiny word.
It reminds us that we were never meant to navigate life alone.
We are part of families.
Neighborhoods.
Workplaces.
Communities.
A shared humanity.
And perhaps if we truly embraced that, we’d make different decisions.
We’d speak a little more gently.
Forgive a little more freely.
Listen a little longer.
Assume the best a little more often.
Offer help before it’s requested.
Because we would no longer be asking, “How does this affect me?”
We would be asking, “How does this affect us?”
It’s only two letters.
Just one simple word.
But I can’t help believing that if enough of us learned to live from we instead of me, we’d all discover something we’ve been searching for all along.
Not just a better life.
A better way to live together.
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