Daniel Goleman argues that of all emotional competencies—self-awareness, self-motivation, self-control, empathy, and assertiveness—self-control is the most important for human growth. I would like to specifically address the role of self-control in communication, whether at work, within the family, on social media, or, of course, in politics. Susanna Tamaro’s novel,  *Tobias and the Angel*  ( Mondadori , 1998), lucidly illustrates the importance of  deconstructing the words  to which Pope Leo XIV referred as a way of building a civilization of love.

Tamaro tells the story of a little girl’s relationship with her grandfather. Her parents are too caught up in their own arguments and disagreements; they don’t notice the little girl’s loneliness. The girl, “locked in her room and hiding under the bed, had begun to separate words by color: ‘You’re a failure.’ Yellow. ‘I can’t stand you anymore.’ Orange. ‘I’m going back to my mother.’ White. ‘You’re a drunk.’ Red. ‘And you’re good for nothing.’ Green. ‘I hate you.’ Black. ‘That stupid daughter of yours.’ Blue. ‘She’s yours too.’ Gray. ‘We’ll see about that.’ Light blue. There were days when the words were more orange and others when they were more yellow. Days when they were redder, days when they were blacker. Over time, in addition to color, she had also given them a shape. There were termite-words, spider-words, and scorpion-words. Lying on the floor, she watched them run toward her.” For the girl, affectionately called Tobias by her grandfather, all these expressions are garbage-words that gnaw at her, that hurt.

Moments of crisis test people’s mettle, for it’s easy to explode and fill the air with vile words that contribute nothing to solving the problem; they are merely a poor display of the speaker’s intemperance. Of all crises, the most notorious and tumultuous is the political one. The average citizen witnesses this turbulence. Reason is lost, and the public sphere is filled with vile language. Insults, slander, and vulgarity taint social dialogue. Are the problems clarified? No, rather, the participants discredit each other.

Fortunately for our little girl, not everything was adversity. There were also what she called  “key words ” in her life . These words offered her a positive future, and their charm opened doors and windows. They are words, gestures, attitudes that seek solutions, spaces for encounter, points of convergence. They make the water flow, they don’t create puddles; if anything, they form calm pools for rest and solace for those speaking. They are words that untangle knots and make dialogue possible, because when dialogue breaks down, what follows is violence or something very close to it. Alongside the key words are also the ”  blanket words ,” capable of welcoming, comforting, and enveloping. They sometimes serve as lifelines, precisely when we need to calm the waters.

Key words and blanket words arise from an attitude of respect for one’s neighbor, from a constant desire to build together, attentive to rebuilding personal bonds, rather than material wealth. Pope Leo XIV reminded us of this in his encyclical  Magnifica Humanitas , encouraging ordinary citizens and politicians alike to “recover the common language, not that of uniformity, but that of communion.” When we look beyond this, we see that “the civilization of love is not a naive utopia, but a demanding project” “shaped by the sum of small and tenacious acts of fidelity”: the project is worth the effort.