trash seeker

one day, when i was a child, my dad gathered my sisters and i and walked us to the living room.  he marched to the middle of the room where there was a scrap of paper laying in the middle of the floor.  he reached over, picked it up, and flipped it over so all of us could see the back of it.  written on the back of the paper was a short note, "whoever picks up this piece of paper, bring it to dad and he'll give you $1."  dad's point was that us kids needed to start caring about how the house looked and start picking up outside of the organized "saturday morning cleanup."  case in point, this piece of paper was put in the living room by my dad days earlier and nobody had touched it.

to this day, this moment affects me every single day.  this next statement is in no way exagerated... EVERY time i see a piece of trash on the ground my immediate thought is is someone placed it there and is watching to see if someone will care enough to pick it up.  the trash could be at work, in an elevator, in the skyway, or even on the street... my first thought is always a curious thought if someone's nearby watching me to see if i'll be the one to care.

i love my city and any chance i get, i try to pick up trash and throw it away at the nearest can.  i don't care about getting my hands dirty because i just want my city to look nice... but EVERY time i pick up a piece of trash i question myself as to if i'm doing it because i care about how the city looks or if i'm doing it because i'm afraid someone nearby planted it and i just don't want to be one of the people who just walks by and ignores it.  

unfortunately, this causes me not to pick up trash sometimes because i'm afraid that i'm doing it purely for selfish reasons... i just want to be the one that somebody sees as "the one who cares" and i want that to make me feel good.

thanks dad...