There was a time where I got really obsessed with picking up trash around my neighborhood in Philly, where I lived from 2012-2017.
I had this great house with a couple of roommates and a trap door to the basement, rough interior brick-wall charm and a cozy street that shut down on Halloween, where you were expected to do something cool for the kids that came by. It was a good time and place.
At some point I decided that I really didn’t like the trash around outside, even though it was a nice neighborhood with comparably less trash than the rest of the city, and so I began to do something about it.
I’d walk around barefoot with my newly acquired dog and one trash bag for trash and another for recyclables. What a savior of the Earth.
I remember a friend called me out over this photo after I posted it on Instagram, something like pointing out how much virtue signaling I was doing and he hoped I was pleased with myself. Of course he was right, which was why I got so offended by him saying it.
Two interesting things happened as a result of this new habit of mine.
One was that I began to see trash EVERYWHERE and it made me ANGRY. Your reticular activation system is the scientific way of saying that you see what you look for in the world.
I saw trash -and- I thought it meant people were bad.
It finally got to the point that I realized I had to change something because it was making me suffer.
One day, I went out without my new dog Maggie and decided to just view trash as stuff, no different from any of the other stuff I could see on my walk.
It took a little reorganizing my brain, but in a relatively short period of time on that same walk it started working. I was observing everything without passing judgment on it; everything was perfect just as it was.
I realized this is what pure love feels like. Quite the experience.
From then on I only picked up trash when it felt like it was really out of place and meant for me to do it.
The second thing that happened over that time period was I followed a guy in the neighborhood…
I had a little park about a half a block from my 3bdrm place and one evening I witnessed a man carrying a bag of trash down the block toward the park. He just left it on the corner, outside the little decorative wall that surrounded the place.
Of course, I was appalled.
But I was also chicken.
So I didn’t say anything to the big man. I watched him walk home instead, just a little past my street.
Then I went back and picked up his bag of trash and left it on his front doorstep.
The next day, or a few days later, I walked out of my place and the same guy yells out to me, “HEY!”
I was caught. They had a little video camera pointed at their stoop.
The thing was that over whatever time period it was I’d realized I didn’t really know what was going on or if this man was the devil I thought he was, leaving his trash at our lovely park even though he lived in the neighborhood. I had already decided if I saw him again I was going to be less chicken and actually ask some questions about it. So when he yelled over at me I surprised the shit outta him by immediately walking right over to him to stand at the bottom of his stoop to talk and say I was sorry for making assumptions.
Boy did the tone change immediately. Turns out, the guy also picked up trash in the neighborhood sometimes, he’d lived there for 30 years, and the city ordained the spot he dropped trash off by the park as one location it was cool to drop bags at so it could be picked up by collectors. We hit it off and were friendly within 90 seconds of him yelling at me.
It is tough to admit fault, but man does it change the tone (as I said) immediately.
Brene Brown has this advice my friend Christina taught me where if you’re in an argument you have to recognize that you have a story in your head about what is happening or has happened leading up to that moment, and if you say, “The story in my head is that…” and the other person gets to hear it and explain the story that is in their heads, then maybe you have a chance of hearing each other. It takes taking a step back from an intense belief or narrative in order to make headway with some other person. There’s a good chance that your story is at least little bit wrong and definitely not what the other person was thinking and feeling.
Maybe your neighbor isn’t a prick.
Maybe trash has a place in the world somehow. At least I learned that
love = acceptance = nonjudgment.
“the story I’m telling myself is that…”
How would you finish that sentence today?
I’m applying for jobs in copywriting, which means I’m also revamping my personal website. I’m turning it into a writing portfolio. I’ll be including articles about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, health and wellness, personal development, and things I wrote for clients over the last few years. If there are any articles I’ve written that have stuck with you, maybe they have a chance of nudging a prospective hiring manager towards giving me that job.
Please send any ideas you have to: samantha@movewellphilly.com
Thank you