Your thoughts shape you. They define your relationship with yourself and your interactions with the world and those who inhabit it. As you experienced your own path, learning, and values are acquired and those will change the way everything that matters happens, allowing you to change things or let them change you, leading to different decisions and outcomes, both for the inhabitants of the city as for you and the universe.
Trying to understand those around you and helping them is actively reflected in your relationship with the world (and yourself), learning from them can be useful, but also difficult and demanding, so you can always choose to do it or not, you owe nothing to anyone.
Will you accept the beliefs of others because they are just convenient? or will you stay true to your own ideals while facing the consequences?