Halloween: When the Streets Get Loud, Stay Calm In Chaos

Promise: I’m switching it up tonight. I’ll stick with the theme of leadership, but ditch the lists and guidelines and keep it more “by the fire.”

Pull up a chair.

Porchlights are warming up, the street’s putting on its costume, and for one night we agree to be a little ridiculous together, as promised, less rulebook, more real talk.

How do you stay good when everything gets loud and chaos is everywhere?

I don’t mean perfect. I don’t even mean “high performance.”

I mean good.

The steady kind of good that doesn’t need an audience or a certificate or a slogan on a hoodie. The kind that notices, that softens, that doesn’t take the bait. The kind that keeps the human part of the room intact when the room is running hot.

I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to drift the other way. The pace picks up. The inbox stacks. The car cuts you off. Your brain builds a case. And then your day becomes a trial you’re determined to win instead of an experience you can share.

I know the difference because I’ve lived both versions, sometimes in the same afternoon.

There’s a neighborhood I used to visit back in Simi Valley California that goes big for Halloween. I mean the entire block is decked out completely. The decorations are insane; the street is packed with onlookers (me being one of them) and timing is just chaos.

Nights, like people, take the shape of the energy we bring to them. In what’s left of this year and ongoing I want to try to bring less armor and more light.

I keep returning to the smallest scenes. The parent who takes a breath before correcting their kid, admittedly sometimes me, although when you’re outnumbered it’s chaos always. The neighbor who fills space with a smile and a wave and conversation, that has no demand attached. The driver who slows first and waves you through that four way stop even though it’s not their “turn”. The kid who notices a toddler struggling with a step and extends a hand like it’s nothing.

It is not nothing.

Those moments are strong in a way we don’t often praise, because they’re not dramatic. They don’t trend. They don’t prove anything to people we’ll never meet. They just keep the fabric from tearing.

Being good is mostly about protecting the fabric.

I don’t think goodness is a speech or a pose. I think it’s a posture. It’s what happens when you walk into a loud room and decide not to add to the volume. It’s choosing to let some stories end before they begin: the honk you don’t return, the comment you don’t post, the point you don’t score because you realized halfway through that winning this would cost you something you actually want to keep. This is more of a reminder to take time, slow down, think before your reaction.

I used to think discipline was for the gym and leadership was for work and kindness was for kindergarten. I was wrong. Discipline is how you stop your mouth when your pride wants the last word. Leadership is the shape your energy takes when you’re not in charge. Kindness is how you handle power when you momentarily have more of it; speed, age, information, strength, and you choose not to use it to win.

There’s a practical side to all this, but tonight I don’t want a list. I want an image I can carry in my pocket.

A porchlight.

Not the brightest light on the block. Not a strobe. Just enough to say: you can find your way, you’re welcome to step up, and we’ll figure it out at our speed. A porchlight doesn’t fix the world. It fixes the doorway. And doorways are where most of the damage happens, those few seconds when we decide if someone is a threat or a neighbor, if we are in a hurry or in a life.

I think about the years I tried to win every moment. It made me clever and tired. It didn’t make me generous. What made me generous, on the days I’ve managed it, and there have been many when I haven’t, was deciding that I didn’t need to be impressive, just helpful. There’s a relief hidden in that shift, the way putting down a heavy bag creates a silence you didn’t notice you were missing.

The truth is, our days are full of chances to carry or cut. You can carry a mood into the next room, or you can set it down. You can cut a person down to size because you were right and they were late, or you can cut the story that says lateness equals disrespect and remember that sometimes late just means human. I don’t always choose well. But when I do, the night gets easier for everyone.

Maybe that’s the point. Not sainthood. Not a perfect record. Just a pattern of choosing to keep the fabric intact.

The last few months I’ve watched my toddler collect scrapes and Band-Aids. Every ten feet: a trip, a bump, eyes up to me, then that tiny reset only a four-year-old can pull off: tears, breath, dignity. Around "boo-boo" number five, he looked to the sky, threw his hands out, and said, “Ugggg, I don’t want any more boo-boos.” I waited for him to walk over and said, “That’s what happens, sometimes you just can’t control things.” He stayed calm in chaos. He let me bandage him up and then walked back into the action as if nothing happened.

We don’t control the bumps. We control the reactions.

He wiped his face, collected himself, and kept going. That’s the lesson I’m trying to learn too, on sidewalks, in meetings, in traffic. Fewer perfect plans, more clean resets.

Watching him, I want to be that kind of person more often, the one who doesn’t dramatize the fall or pretend it didn’t hurt, who just helps with the bandage and makes space for the reset. The one who chooses steadiness over spectacle. The fall is the fall; the follow-up is where character lives.

We talk about “giving grace” like it’s a coupon you hand to the deserving. I’m starting to see it as a lens you put on when your eyes are tired. Grace isn’t “anything goes.” It’s choosing the most generous accurate story about someone’s behavior, and acting from there. Most people aren’t villains; they’re carrying more than we can see while trying not to show it.

Halloween makes the carrying literal for a night, bags, masks, the logistics of being small in a crowd. The rest of the year, the bags are invisible.

If you need one rule (I promise, no lists), try this: assume weight. Not weakness. Assume the person in front of you is hauling more than you think, and move accordingly. That doesn’t make you a doormat. It makes you a neighbor.

Underneath all of this is a fear that if I don’t defend every square inch, I’ll lose it. I’ve learned the opposite. When I defend every inch, I shrink. When I give a little, time, space, patience, life gets bigger. The street opens. People meet me where I am. The night becomes less of a contest and more of a place we share before the porchlights click off.

I don’t know what you’re carrying this year. Maybe it’s a diagnosis, a deadline, or a loneliness that doesn’t make sense because the calendar is full. Maybe it’s a win that feels fragile and you’re holding your breath. Either way, I hope tonight is gentle with you. I hope something ordinary and kind happens in your direction, and you notice a small click inside, like a gear finding the next tooth. Progress isn’t always louder. Sometimes it’s just smoother.

And if the night doesn’t cooperate, if someone is rude, if something spills, if a plan gets knocked sideways, that might be exactly when the porchlight matters. Not because it saves the scene, but because it keeps you from turning into a version of yourself you don’t like. That version is always two sentences away: the sarcastic reply, the sharper tone, the extra gas on a fire that didn’t need heat. I’ve been him. He’s efficient and empty. He never makes the room better.

So thank you for reading this on a day built for noise. Thank you for the small choices the rest of us won’t notice directly but will feel anyway, for slowing down when you didn’t have to, for letting someone in, for correcting softly, for repairing a thing you didn’t break, for picking a story that keeps the fabric intact.

If we’re lucky, we get a few holidays where the costume is obvious and we can practice seeing past it. The rest of the time, the costumes are better and the labels are louder. That’s when I need the reminder most: names over roles, breath over rush, repair over perform. Nothing fancy.

Just good.

The porchlight is on.

Tag, you’re it!

Happy Halloween!