It's More than Garbage

At the home stretch of my Life Coaching certification program – the last month or so of a mostly self-guided program – I am finding a heightened sense of awareness of my thoughts and feelings.  I do my best processing during my walks.  And when I walk, I mean I walk about the equivalent of a 5K for my exercise.  Today was one of those days, when I felt the desire to take to computer keyboard to express the end results of my processing.  So here goes:

Since shortly after moving to a new, big, and (I like to think) beautiful neighborhood on March 19 of last year (Yes! Just in time for the big quarantine in our state), I have taken to a routine of alternating two exercise routes in the new surroundings.  In addition to relishing the beauty of what Spring had to offer by way of flowering vegetation, I also noticed some recyclable articles left behind along the sidewalks.  So on those days when the recyclable bins were out at the curb sides, I found that it felt good to pick up some of these items and to discard them. 

As time has gone by – mostly through the Autumn and early Winter seasons – I have noticed an increase in the amount of garbage scattered around  the  neighborhood.  At first this noticing was just on a surface level.  Then there came a curiosity about why this might be, this increased amount.  Thoughts came to mind:  “Hm… yes, it’s been windy; perhaps the wind blew some of the bins over and papers flew around.”  “Perhaps the wind and rain is what makes some of this pile up near the run off drains.”  “I think some of this might be what has been left by the guys picking up the bins, when it doesn’t make it into the trucks.”  “Wait, some of this looks like it has simply been dropped where it lies.” 

At some point recently I remember thinking about bringing along a plastic shopping bag on walks, so I could pick some of this up, although that plan had not come to fruition until today.  I did not remember to bring one of our bags along, but just as I was setting out on today’s walk, there appeared a clean, plastic shopping bag along my path.  “Great,” I thought.  “This is a good opportunity.”  About 2/3 of the way through my walking route, the bag was quite full, and I found the need to discard of it in a garbage bin a neighbor had already put at the curb for tomorrow’s pick up.  There was much more garbage around than I even originally thought… 

 The take-aways from this experience go as follows:  As my “observations” went from curiosity to blaming to tolerating to taking action without judgment, I felt better.  The end result of my actions on the walk today was self-satisfaction.  But there is more!  The energy produced around this self-satisfaction also created more energy around accomplishing other things throughout the day.

The big picture, intuitive question that came from this experience goes as follows:  How much more positive energy might be created if everyone functioned in the manner - meaning taking an observation, creating curiosity around it, avoiding blame and seeing the opportunity to take personal actions?