Change

When I was younger, my mom and I used to go for a walk around our neighborhood almost every night. In the beginning of our walk, right by our house, was a creek. People loved to litter in this creek and before my mom and I started our walk, she always made me help her pick up the trash and throw it away. When I was younger this used to be an annoyance to me because I didn't want to pick up other people's trash. Today, that experience has the opposite effect on me. If I see trash on my way to class, I make sure to pick it up and throw it away in the nearest garbage can. Now littering has become an annoyance to me. I do not understand why some people just decide to make the oval or the sidewalk their personal trash can. I know that me picking up a few pieces of trash a day isn't going to clean up the whole world but it does two things. One, the trash that I pick up is that much less trash floating around. And two, I hope that when other people see me picking up other's trash that maybe it will influence them to also. Adler talked about that dog he saw in Israel that everyone kept walking past and I think that analogy applies to a lot of issues in the world and especially with littering. All of the trash that I pick up means that numerous people before me continued to walk past it, thinking that someone else would pick it up. When I'm walking with my friends, I do receive some negative feedback. Most of my friends ask why I'm picking up other's litter and then they usually say that's gross. It's not like I pick up other people's trash and then eat a sloppy joe without washing my hands. I haven't done this yet but one Saturday I want to invite my friends to come walk around campus/High Street with me and pick up as much trash as we can in a few hours. Hopefully this will have a domino effect on my friends and bystanders watching. Maybe one day, every first Saturday of the month will be known as Pick Up A Piece Of Trash Day. Besides that, I can't really think of any long term goals I have for this issue except that I hope picking up litter really will start to spread among others.