Some lessons in life arrive quietly. At the time they appear trivial, almost mundane. Only years later do we realize that they were shaping our character in ways far deeper than we understood. When I was a student at a Scholars’ school in Srinagar around 2010 –11, one rule was simple and non-negotiable: after meals, everyone washed their own plates. At the time it felt like just another discipline of school life. Only later did I realize that it was teaching something bigger; responsibility for one’s own actions. More than a decade later, I find myself reflecting on that lesson in a different setting. At the college in Tamil Nadu where I now teach, students finish their lunch and quietly wash their own plates before leaving. Professors do the same. No one considers it remarkable. It is simply understood that the mess one creates is one’s own responsibility. Watching this everyday practice has made me think about a larger cultural question.

In many parts of our society, particularly within sections of the middle and upper classes, we grow up learning a very different script. Meals appear on the table prepared by someone else. Plates are cleared and washed by someone else. Rooms are cleaned by someone else. Cars are driven by someone else. Gradually, without anyone explicitly teaching it, a subtle psychology of entitlement begins to take root. Life starts to appear as something that should be organized for our comfort by the labor of others. At first glance, this may seem like a matter of convenience or economic arrangement. But the consequences are deeper than that. The habits we cultivate in private life often shape how we behave in public spaces. If someone else is always expected to clear our table, it becomes easy to assume someone else will clear our streets. If someone else cleans our homes, we begin to imagine that someone else must also take responsibility for public order and civic discipline. Littering, indifference to public spaces, and casual disregard for rules are not simply failures of enforcement. They often reflect a deeper cultural assumption: that responsibility lies elsewhere.

In many ways, this mentality is a lingering inheritance of colonial hierarchies, where social status was measured by how little one had to do for oneself. Unfortunately, that imagination of success continues to influence sections of our aspirational middle class. Progress is sometimes equated not with responsibility, but with increasing distance from everyday labor. Yet dignity is not diminished by doing one’s own work. If anything, it is strengthened by it. Children who grow up making their own beds, clearing their own plates, and caring for the spaces they inhabit learn a quiet but important truth: freedom and responsibility grow together. These seemingly small habits cultivate respect for labor, for shared spaces, and for the invisible work that sustains everyday life.

Occasionally, when I visit someone’s home as a guest, I notice something revealing. Hospitality may be generous, yet the entire act of serving is often performed by domestic staff or house help, while the children of the household remain absent from the process. In such moments one wonders what lessons about responsibility are being transmitted, often unintentionally. Psychologists have long observed that children internalize social values not through instruction alone, but through participation in everyday practices. When they help serve guests, share small acts of care, or engage in conversations around the table, they learn empathy, responsibility, and the rhythms of social life. Such moments quietly transmit norms of hospitality, concern for others, and a sense of belonging to a community larger than oneself. Deprived of these experiences, the opportunity to cultivate social responsibility and meaningful human bonds may gradually fade from everyday life.

In my own academic life, I have come to value this ethic of self-reliance and participation very deeply. I am a firm proponent of a “do-it-yourself” approach in the classroom as well. I do not believe in spoon-feeding students with ready-made notes; instead, I encourage them to read widely, develop their own understanding, and prepare their own notes. Learning, in my view, becomes meaningful only when students actively construct knowledge rather than passively receive it. I also often encourage them to use their holidays productively. Some students channel their time into creative work, one of my students spends her vacations making hand-painted bookmarks, keychains, and small artworks that she later sells. Others bake pastries and cakes, investing a few hundred rupees and sometimes earning several times that amount through their efforts. These may appear like modest activities, yet they carry profound lessons. They nurture self-confidence, self-efficacy, and the dignity of labor.

Psychologists often describe such moments as mastery experiences, instances in which individuals realise that their effort can produce meaningful outcomes. Such experiences form one of the strongest foundations of self-efficacy and healthy self-esteem. I often witness the quiet blossoming of character in these moments. When young people turn their free time into creative labour, they are not merely producing objects; they are discovering the satisfaction of effort, the dignity of earning through one’s own work, and the confidence that comes from knowing they can create value in the world. In these small acts, lessons about discipline, economy, and identity begin to take root. They remind us that education is not merely the acquisition of knowledge, but also the cultivation of agency, the belief that one can shape one’s life through effort, imagination, and purposeful action.

Across many Eastern traditions, acts of service have long been seen as a form of moral education. In spaces such as Sufi khanqahs, shrines, gurdwaras, and mandirs, people gather not only for spiritual reflection but also for shared service. Meals are prepared and distributed collectively; individuals from different backgrounds sit together, cook together, and serve one another without distinction. These practices embody an ethic that goes beyond charity. They cultivate humility, community, and responsibility. Children who grow up witnessing or participating in such practices learn how to interact with others, how to welcome guests, and how to contribute to the well-being of the community. Through such acts, traditions of hospitality, social responsibility, and care for others are quietly transmitted. Bonds between people are strengthened, and the simple act of serving becomes a way of learning what it means to belong to a society.

Societies are not shaped only by laws, policies, or grand reforms. They are also shaped by everyday practices that slowly mould our sense of obligation toward others. Perhaps meaningful civic culture begins with something very simple.

Clean the space you use.

From such small habits, a deeper sense of responsibility, and ultimately a more thoughtful society, begins to grow.

Dr. Mirza Jahanzeb Beg, professor of psychology, heads the Center for Advanced Behavioral Policy Innovation and Leadership (CABPIL), KI, Coimbatore.

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