I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “it takes a village” recently.

It makes sense that the idea has been more popular — pretty much any positive headlines we see today are stories of communities coming together and helping each other. No heartwarming stories that pull at our heartstrings are things done alone, it’s people showing up and caring for each other.

The concept is great, and it is something I wholeheartedly agree with. We do need other people, and any common goal is best achieved through group effort. However, while the idea of “needing a village” is becoming more widespread, so is selfishness, judgment, division and flat-out being mean.

I mean, think about it — how often do you hear someone say “you don’t owe anybody anything” in response to an issue? How often do you read the comments on a social media post and they’re filled with hate?

“I just don’t want to” has become the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for any social obligation. Don’t get me wrong — I get it. Sometimes you’ve had a hard week and just need to skip a hangout and take a night to yourself. I think everyone has been there at some point in their lives, especially in college.

Now, if every single week you’re canceling on friends at the last minute, ditching them to do something else, that’s a different story. Even if you technically “don’t owe anyone anything,” that doesn’t mean you’re automatically excused from your bad behavior towards others. Part of being a friend is showing up, even if you don’t always feel like it. Part of being in a community is thinking about more people than just yourself.

Today, people take any reason to judge or get angry — always on edge, eager for the next occasion we can make fun of someone else. Insulting people has become a hobby, and nobody frowns upon it as long as the person they’re insulting is different from them in some way, whether it be their fashion, looks or opinion. One sentence is enough to shut someone out and stop listening to anything else they have to say, or immediately jump into an argument, skipping a conversation.

It’s like we’re purposely searching for the bad in people instead of the good, just to find something wrong with them that we can judge. How could this be more fulfilling than searching for a meaningful connection with someone? Wouldn’t we rather look for a friend than the butt of our next joke?

This issue is that if you asked anyone, they probably would say they’d rather look for a friend, but saying it doesn’t mean anything if your actions don’t reflect it. We can all say that it takes a village, but if we’d rather throw stones instead of building with them, that village can’t exist.

It sounds a bit ironic to say the first step towards creating a village is to look inward, but building a community takes collective effort — we have to examine our own behavior before becoming defensive and blaming others for us not coming together. The only thing we can control is ourselves, and being unwilling to have an open mind because other people don’t isn’t going to get us anywhere.

To be clear, I’m not pointing any fingers here. I think we’re all a little guilty of this in some capacity, even if we don’t realize. This is something that I hadn’t even really given much thought to until this semester, and it’s something I’ve been becoming more aware of in myself, and in turn, have realized how much society has normalized this behavior.

When you hear the phrase “close-minded” today, it has a very specific image tied to it. At least for myself, I had only really thought about it in the context of people who weren’t accepting towards people of a different religion, race, sexual orientation and other historically disenfranchised groups. Until one day, my class went over the “balconies and basements” of our Clifton Strengths, and the basement of one of mine was close-minded. (Bear with me here, I know you probably are tired of hearing about Clifton Strengths.)

I read this, and my immediate reaction was to laugh about how inaccurate that was. Of all my weaknesses, I didn’t think being close-minded could ever be one. I got home for the day and continued to think about this. I couldn’t seem to just brush it off — I couldn’t just dismiss it as a piece of paper that wasn’t calling me specifically out.

I started to think about my actions. Okay, so maybe it’s true I don’t really like admitting when I’m wrong. I guess I have made a few assumptions about people before even meeting them or hearing what they have to say.

I realized how much of my time spent on social media was purposely looking at things I knew would annoy me, and I would let extreme yet obscure opinions I’d see on a random post affect how I viewed the general public’s opinion. My view of society had been skewed by my own stubbornness and the content I was choosing to consume, and my view of what it looked like to be close-minded had been skewed towards only applying to those I disagreed with.

I became embarrassed. I really am close-minded, aren’t I?

I say all of this because I don’t think this mindset is uncommon. Especially with social media, where our feeds are tailored specifically for us. It makes it so easy to fall into the trap of believing the way we think is right, that those who disagree are wrong and that’s all there is to say about it. We start to believe our “community” only exists online, with strangers in comment sections instead of our next-door neighbors.

We let ourselves fall short of being there for others because we’ve built our perception of the world by ourselves. We believe it’s okay to never show up when we don’t feel like it, because we start to view the world as full of people who don’t show up for others. We start to only think about ourselves because we assume everyone else is doing the same. But by doing this, we’re doing the very same thing that we’re judging others for.

Perhaps we believe that nobody has a village simply because we aren’t partaking in it. It’s easier to go online and only interact with people who agree with us than it is to reflect on our beliefs. But creating a village isn’t about what’s easy — it’s about being there for others, even when it’s hard. It’s about listening to people and considering their feelings.

We can’t expect help if we aren’t willing to offer it, and the only solution to close-mindedness is human interaction. Without conversation, no one would ever learn from each other, and people only get torn farther and farther apart until we believe society is too far gone for community.

Without seeking out opportunities to open our hearts and minds to learn from others who are different from us, we aren’t seeking out a village — we’re seeking out a gated community.

Flannery Lemmonds is a sophomore at UT this year studying advertising. She can be reached at [email protected].

Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.