After last week’s meeting, I was feeling energized and genuinely excited about the vibe in our club. The room felt alive. The conversations felt hopeful. We’re already exceeding most of our goals and we're clearly on a path toward accomplishing some pretty amazing things this year — some of which you’ll be hearing more about in the coming weeks.

Then last night happened.

After a flurry of routine emails about small scheduling conflicts between Rotary teams, I opened one message that stopped me cold. It contained some pretty direct, negative personal comments about my behavior!

And here’s the hard part: some of it was probably true.

I also took it personally — which feels fair, since it was about me and my shortcomings. The tone was harsher than it needed to be (if it needed to be said at all), and it stung. Even knowing there was truth in it, I felt hurt, unappreciated, and then… I felt angry.

As I was stewing over what response I might send — and let’s just say it wasn’t shaping up to be particularly kind — I received a text from a fellow Rotarian:

“A favorite quote from a recent training I attended:
‘Conflict is inevitable. Combat is not.’”

Six simple words.
Conflict is inevitable. Combat is not.

They landed with perfect timing. I don’t know how the sender knew what I was wrestling with, but those words stopped me in my tracks.

Do I still feel a little bruised? Yes.
Did I get a half-hearted apology? Sort of.

But the real lesson here goes far beyond my feelings.

We will all experience conflict. In Rotary. In leadership. In life. It’s unavoidable when passionate, caring people are working toward meaningful change. What is avoidable is choosing combat over curiosity. Defensiveness over dialogue. Retaliation over reflection.

Taking this back to Rotary — much of what we do exists because something in the world isn’t working the way it should. Hunger. Illiteracy. Loneliness. Environmental harm. Those are all forms of conflict.

Our mission is to respond to those conflicts with service, compassion, and hope.

And maybe just as importantly… we’re called to respond to each other the same way.

With kindness.
With patience.
With the assumption of good intent.

None of us is perfect. We’re volunteers. We’re human. We’re all trying.

If we can remember that — especially in the messy moments — we don’t just build better projects.

We build a better Rotary.

And I, for one, am grateful to be building it with ALL of you.