Comm-YOU-nity

I saw something a couple weeks ago. A woman, sitting in her car in a parking lot, pushed her door open and dropped an empty take-out cup onto the ground. She had my attention. Was she planning to leave it there? Or, did she just want to set it down for a moment with the intention of throwing it away in the trash can? 

I was rootin' for her.

"Come on, girl," I said to myself, "you're not gonna just leave it there are you?"

I continued to watch. 

She opened her door again and threw out a handful of crumpled papers. Then, some other odd items I couldn't identify at a distance. Then a small plastic bag. It was obvious. She was cleaning out her car. 

I wanted to keep believin'. Surely, she would gather it all up when she was finished and walk it to the trash can that was just 15 feet away in the parking lot.

But, I'm sorry to say, she did not. Instead, she closed her car door and moved her vehicle to the next parking spot in front of her. She removed herself completely from any responsibility for the trash she left behind her.

I was disappointed, to say the least. And, honestly, I wanted to be quick to judge her and say, "What are you doing lady?? You mean to tell me you can't pick up your junk and walk it to the trash can? Who's gonna clean this up? We're part of a community here."

***

We forget. I forget. Or, maybe we just don't care. We make our decisions sometimes without thinking about how it will affect the lives around us. We are thinking 'me', not community if we...

Litter 

Text while driving

Don't wash our hands after using the bathroom 

Shoplift (businesses often raise their prices to compensate for the loss)

Speed and drive recklessly

Treat red lights like 'stop-tionals'

Mishandle our taxes

Don't tip our waiter/waitress/hair dresser/etc.

Do dirty business

Maybe we think our actions don't have much impact. "It's only one piece of litter. It's only one fraudulent claim." But, just as it takes each little piece of sand to fill the beach, so our 'little' actions add up to much when we choose self over community. And, in the same way, little can add up to much if we all choose community over self.

How will YOU be part of Comm-YOU-nity?