"Be the change you want to see in the world"
People think that you have to move mountains to change the world, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It is actually all the small things that really end up making a big difference in the world. Let me explain.
Every morning my fiance and I take our dogs on a 4 mile walk down an old farm road not to far from our house. We love walking there because there is usually never any traffic so we can let our dogs off the leash and not have to worry about them getting run over.
Unfortunately, we have been seeing more and more trash on the side of the road everyday. It's really sad. So we decided to do something about it.
People don't have any respect for anything anymore, much less mother earth. They throw trash out the window and let it pile up on the side of the road and either expect someone else to clean it up or they just don't care if they ruin the beautiful landscape either way I find that disgusting! Especially considering there are garbage cans everywhere you go, stores, gas stations, apartments, and even at home, so there is really no excuse to toss it outside on the ground.
Anyhow, instead of getting mad or just ignoring it we decided to make it beautiful again so we cleaned it up this morning on our walk. It wasn't hard, we just grabbed a big plastic bag that we had from hobby lobby and picked up the big pieces of trash on our walk. It was annoying and dirty, but to be honest it made me feel real good even though I knew we would never get a thank you. It felt good because now we get to enjoy our walk more and we did something to help make the world just a little bit more beautiful! I call that a win-win!
(This is what we picked up just today!)
While cleaning up the trash I was thinking, if everyone grabbed one big bag and filled it up with trash this entire world will be so much cleaner and so much more beautiful without much effort at all! A little work with a lot of people goes a long way! So I decided that one day a week I will take the time to walk a new route and clean up trash, not because I have to or because someone is thanking me, but because I want to be the change I want to see in the world.
So here is my challenge to you.... Next time you are walking down the street and see some trash, don't just walk by it, pick it up and put it in the trash can.. That's it! That is all you need to do to help change the world and make it a little bit of a better place! JUST BE THAT CHANGE! I know its not your fault but make it your responsibility to pick it up, because if you don't who will?? Answer: NO ONE.
Lets all join together and make this world beautiful again, one piece of trash at a time.. Believe it or not the small things really do make a difference.
Love this kinda stuff.. UV & RS... try using #litterwalk and #ophumanangels tags for stuff like this.. just a suggestion..
Thanks @davedickeyyall, I love seeing the support for posts like this one. Great advice, i never think to use anything but the popular tags I find in the explore tab but I really should use more obvious tags. Thats not really my strong suit.
THANK YOU!! 💚
Welcome! :0)
'Be the change you want to see' is one of the 'rules' I try to live by.
On the trash issue: there used to be a lake not so far away from my house where you could swim, or have a picnic in the grass surrounding it. During weekends in summer, it was always very crowded. So I developed the habit of bringing a couple of bags when I went there on Monday to pick up the huge amount of trash that was left behind. It often took me more than an hour before I got the place cleaned up and could go swimming.
Now, a couple of years later, the entire area is off limits for people. It is so sad, but I can truly understand why they closed it. If everyone would have contributed a little by just taking home their own trash, we would still be swimming there...
I try to live by that rule too.. I wish more people did! I find myself picking up trash at the beach too, which is ridiculous because there are literally trash cans every 100 feet.
Its sad they closed down that beach by you, but the truth is the people who were littering there prolly don't even care that they ruined it for everyone else and thats the problem.. people not caring about anything but themselves. :/
I don't even excpect that they realize it was their own fault.
I can never understand how people just keep on leaving their trash anywhere. I even carry a little ashtray around. You should see the look on people's faces when I take it out to put away my cigarette bud. They look at me like I'm from out of space or something. It's sad, really :0(
So true, no one accepts blame for anything anymore..
I cant understand how people are ok with it either, I often wonder what kind of morals they were raised with..
If I saw you put ur butt in an ashtray u carry around I wouldnt think you are crazy, Id think you are fucking awesome! Like, did we just become best friends!?!? Ha.. 😉
Lol. Glad someone agrees ;0)
Just last week I noticed a friend tossing out his búrning cigarette bud out of the car window. Man, it hasn't rained for wééks. It felt good to yell at someone for once, though. I needed that :0)
Good job buddy, I don't get out and walk like people who "walk" but I will stop and pick up some trash and dispose of it properly if it happens to catch my eye and I am a foot.
With as much driving as I do I see where a lot of the trash comes from and that would be the beds of the pick up trucks, trash blows out of them all the time and I am sure you probably have seen it too with as many miles you have traveled in the last six or so months. I always take a look in my truck bed each morning when I travel, it seems that truck beds became trash cans for people in hotel parking lots, I wish I had a dollar for every Mc Donald's bag or drink can or cup I have had to remove from there before leaving the parking lot, none of which were mine. The folks I guess just couldn't stand it enough to carry it to the door or to their room to throw it away, damn near every hotel has trash cans near the doors but I guess that is just not as convenient as the bed of my truck. Here in Texas if litter blows out of the bed of your truck you can and will get a ticket for littering if the highway robbers see it happen.
You know I have never thought of that aspect but you are totally right! We live out in the country and people here constantly use their pickup trucks as trash cans. I am sure that some of it isn't intentional at all, but I know that some of it is. If there were more people like you (who check the pickup bed before you drive off) then we could stop a lot of this before it ever gets to the road. It sucks you have to look, but its better than it ending up on the road or with a ticket for something you didn't even do!
Yes, checking the bed of the truck and the body and tires for damages is a normal routine for me in the mornings before I leave the hotel. I am sure a good portion is intentional I have been behind people on the road and see cups and cans go sailing out the windows plenty of times.
This little back and forth just reminded me of something that happened to me back in the early 1980's over in Ocala, FL. when I was there for a horse show. I might have to do a post on that for the blockchain memory project. It is really quite funny of a story.
I always enjoy our convos and your articles, I always try to find time to read them even if i dont leave a comment on all of them..
I will definitely keep my eyes open for your 80s florida story, its funny how old memories just pop up out of the blue because of a certain conversation.. the mind is a beautiful thing..
Well I appreciate that, and the mind truly is as you have stated.
I live in Japan, and its known as one of the cleanest countries in the world. The culture of "clean up after yourself" is strong here. Children are thought from elementary school to clean up after themselves, and they even clean their own schools.
With a lack of garbage bins around the city, stores like 7-11, Circle K, Family Mart and so on, are popular garbage disposal places. I mean, if I buy something in a package, like a sandwich or a drink, and am finished with it, I will either discard it at a store, or take home with me to recycle.
Most Japanese are the same way. There are the few odd-balls who just throw trash on the side of a street, but the other 99.9% of Japanese discard of trash in a thoughtful manner.
Wow, that is awesome! I wish people were raised like that here in America too, but sadly it is kind of the opposite.. It has turned into an entitlement society here where everyone expects someone else to fix all the problems instead of taking the initiative themselves.. I am glad my parents instilled good morals in me regardless of what other people do..
Thanks for leaving such an awesome comment. 😎✌
This kind of post we need more of and more to follow your advise
I actually always have a couple of plastic bags in my camera bag for when i visit beaches and parks, and if I see trash I pick it up and get rid of it,
as you can getting frustrated by people that dump trash, is understandable but its even better to do somehting about it
Thanks, I'm glad so many people like this positive post. Thats awesome of you to clean up beaches and parks! If more people took that initiative we would all be in a much cleaner and more beautiful world. :) Thanks for helping.
@moderndayhippie And thank you for posting this and hopefully motivating more to ddo the same
This is such a refreshingly good post! Thank you for having the initiative in making changes. More power!
glad you enjoyed it.
Today I saw a 70 year old lady picking up trash on the side of the road on her way to the same yoga class I was going to. She ended up being a few minutes late to class bc she was doing work! That lady kicks ass & you guys do too! She had a grabber hand, u should get one if u wanna be pro !
Fuck yeah! That grandma is not only awesome but also fucking brilliant! Your right, i do need to follow her lead and get a grabber hand! 😎 Thanks for the idea bro..
#Namaste
& ive been meaning to do the same thing along my normal road walk. I’ll post a shout out when I fill a bag. People still litter everywhere!
Hell yeah bro, every little bit counts :0)
If it makes you feel good then do it. Where you live looks relatively rural, I'm surprised there is so much trash on the roadside.
It is rural, i live in the middle of nowhere thats why i was so suprised to see so much trash on this short 2 mile stretch. But there is a highschool school about a mile away and I think the kids use this road on their lunch hour to well do kid stuff lol..
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