In this short piece, I connect the dots between the pervasive influence of microbial activities on our health and that of the planet, including their positive and negative roles in current polycrises, our ability to influence microbes to promote their positive influences and mitigate their negative impacts, the roles of everyone as stewards and stakeholders in personal, family, community, national, and global wellbeing, the need for stewards and stakeholders to possess relevant information in order to fulfil their roles and obligations, and the compelling case for microbiology literacy and introduction of a societally relevant microbiology curriculum in school.