Make A Difference

A couple of days ago there was a lot of backed up traffic downtown. There was no way that a bus was going to be coming any time soon and so I decided to start walking. I turned the IPod on to some great music and headed off. There are moments in my life that I picture myself in a movie and I always love having the IPod readily available so that I have a great soundtrack to go along with the scenes from the movie, this was one of those times. I eventually ended up walking the whole way home which is about 35 blocks. I made it to the bus stop that I would have been getting off at right as the bus arrived. It was during this walk that I had a lot of good thoughts and some of them I would like to share with you.

No matter how I or anyone else looks at my life I have many advantages, benefits and opportunities that the vast majority of the world’s population have never had nor will have. Some of these advantages are due to my race and sex, being a white male in the world still has its privilege regardless of what society or people say. Many of my advantages have come at the hand of my parent’s hard work and sacrifice. Both of my parents were not privileged people as they were growing up but both have done much to enable me and my siblings to be. My siblings have also contributed to a large degree to my advantage in life. But no advantage really makes any difference if I don’t myself accept and take the opportunities as they are presented. To some degree I have experienced both acting and not acting on those opportunities. Being able to move to Washington, DC is a great opportunity and one that I have been waiting a long time for, the time was finally right and I took it.

One thing that is all around where I am living is poverty. I don’t feel that it is extreme in the area that I live, but coming from a fairly wealthy area in Utah this area is fairly poor in comparison. As I have been living here and taking the public transit I have seen and observed to some degree the way that people live who don’t have much. This is not the first time that I have been exposed to homeless individuals or people who live in bare circumstances, but it has been along time since I have been around it consistently.

The day following my first night here, on the way to the bus stop, I noticed litter and trash lying on the ground in people’s yards. There are no piles of garbage lying around but broken bottles, papers, wrappers and what appeared to be used contraceptives on the street, sidewalk and lawn. No one in the neighborhood seemed to be concerned by it, not even the broken glass that was scattered on the sidewalk that some kid could cut himself on, but don’t worry I picked it up. Even on the bus an older man, probably in his mid 50s, was drinking a soda out of a plastic bottle and when he was done he just threw it on the floor of the bus. He didn’t even think twice about it, but just threw it over his shoulder as if it were meant to go on the floor. This other older gentleman was eating some food and then threw the wrapper on the ground.

Since I have been here I have only seen one other person besides myself who has picked up some litter off the ground. Why is that? Growing up I remember people who were out walking for exercise taking along a sack so that they could pick up trash along the way. I recall neighbors picking up trash off of their lawns and sidewalks as soon as it was noticed. Why does that not take place here? Some have said because people don’t own the property and that it is not their job to take care of the upkeep. Maybe because everyone is to busy trying to work 2 or 3 jobs and take care of a family that they don’t have time to clean up a little trash off of their lawn. Maybe it is due to the higher population density living in the area. And let us not forget the reason that rats need food too.

I don’t know what the reason is. I only know that there is a difference between a low-income and high-income area and one of those seems to be the amount of litter on the streets. It isn’t that I want to be Captain Planet and save the world, though it is a worthy cause, I just think that it is nice when you can walk down the sidewalk and not see a bunch of garbage on the streets. Am I much different than most people? I hope not. Is it because of the way I was raised and the place? Don’t other people like to live in a nice and clean neighborhood? I don’t feel that I am way off base but for some reason I think that people around where I am currently living don’t have the same desire as I do and/or their desire has been extinguished to some degree.

I should give credit to those in the neighborhood who do keep their yards nice and clean, and they do look really nice, but there defiantly is a difference between the community that I just came from and the one that I am in now. Regardless of where we live it is our responsibility to improve upon that which has already been established and as Michael Jackson said “make the world a better place for you and for me and the entire human race.”