Responsibility to Our Communities

There’s this Seinfeld joke that goes something along the lines of “If aliens were watching earth they’d see us humans being led around by dogs, picking up after them and they’d think the dogs were in charge.” I was able to track it down here.

It’s a funny joke and hits on those chords of reality when we’re out following our dog around picking up what they leave behind. But on one of the slow walks I took with our dog, I realized it’s a misinterpretation of why we actually clean up after them.

In short, I realized I don’t pick up after my dog for my dog. I pick up after my dog for my neighbor. I care about our neighborhood and our community. I don’t want to live in a dumpy place or have a negative impact on it, so I’m not doing it for him, but for the person I wave to as we walk by.

It’s the same sentiment we have when picking up stray pieces of trash, moving sticks out of the street or sneaking over and shoveling for our neighbor before they get out. It’s altruistic. We all do our little part to help the neighborhood where we live. Or we should.

I’m a pretty firm believer that if we want major issues to change, we first have to start at the individual level. For instance, I understand that when I reuse a plastic bag I’m having next to no impact on the problem of global plastic pollution. But if enough of us start pulling in the same direction by reducing our use and improving, even slowly, over time we can actually start to make an impact.

Of course there are the rebuttals of “What about the wasteful corporations?” Which is a completely valid concern. But there are two important questions: 1) Who works in those corporations? and 2) Who are those corporations ultimately responsible to? ‘Us’ is the answer. We need to demand more of them — we typically just disagree how we demand more.

I will say even writing about these things makes me a bit uneasy. Mostly because I don’t want it to be interpreted as a chest-thumping display of “look at me.” That’s actually the opposite of what I want. In fact, I am very aware of many things I can do better on these fronts and am positive that there are many people who do it better than me.

But I also want to up the ante, so to speak. If we each start doing these little things to improve our neighborhoods and communities, a cascade will be set off.

Screw what the politicians say, they can’t fix the problem. I don’t want to live in a place with trash on the streets, so I take action. I don’t petition the city council to have more city workers out cleaning the streets, I pick it up when I see it. And I’ll admit I started picking up trash because I noticed one of my neighbors doing it. He didn’t put it there but he wouldn’t stand for having trash sitting in front of his house. Unbeknownst to him, he raised the bar up for me to do better as well.

It’s an obligation I hope we all feel to our neighborhoods, communities and our world. Because like it or not, we’re all in this together.