There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.

Decency does not stop at the edge of your own species. Animals that can suffer have a claim on how you treat them, and even living things that cannot suffer ask for something like care rather than casual destruction. The obligation is not equal to what you owe a person, and it is not nothing either.

Notice one place where you treat something living as pure material this week. A garden, an animal, a place you pass through. Do the small careful thing rather than the convenient one, not because it will be noticed, but because the habit of care does not stay confined to one subject.