Just How Lazy Are You?

I spend a lot of time with people.  I like people.  I like their crazy stories and even crazier opinions.  I talk a lot.  I try to listen even more.  But all that people-time builds up a need in me for some serious down-time.  A need for quiet solitute in a beautiful setting.  I frequently go for a ramble in some spacious park, along a river, up a mountain, or down an empty beach.  I'll walk for hours - watching the weather roll in and out, watching the sun rise and fall.  Troubles melt against that vast beauty. 

But amidst that wonderful feeling of - aaaaahhhhhhhh - i often run into an eyesore that spoils the whole image.  Trash.  It jars the soothing calm of Nature when i stumble upon - sometimes quite literally - a pile of garbage.  I cannot understand why anyone would want to leave such a mess behind.  It's not like you can do it by accident.  "Oops - i just forgot that diaper full of poop!  Oops - i just forgot that case of empty beer bottles!  Oops - i just forgot that bag of empty sandwhich wrappers, soda cans, cigarette cartons, and candy wrappers!"  You didn't forget.  You just didn't want to bother.  Which baffles me.  If you thought enough to bring it in - why can't you think enough to bring it out?  The only reason i can think of is laziness.  Just pure laziness. 

And what baffles me even more, if you were to ask a person, any person, which place you would rather visit - a trash-filled beach or a pristine one?  The answer would always be, hands-down, the pristine beach.  No one, including the people who leave their trash behind, want to be in a place that looks like the county landfill. 

When i take my jaunts, i usually bring a neatly folded paper bag with me.  I pick up as i walk, or pile it up and get it on my way back.  If i forget the bag, i'll use my jacket, towels, or whatever i have on hand to gather trash up and take it to a garbage bin.  It isn't hard.  I don't even break a sweat.  And somehow i always imagine all the birds, plants, animals, and our Mother Earth saying a little "thank you" when i help to keep Her clean and beautiful. 

So next time you and the fam are going out in Nature to enjoy - please bring a paper bag and help pick up what others have left behind.  And if you see someone leaving trash, a tackful "reminder" - to take back what they brought with them - wouldn't hurt.

Expectations

Evil things really.  Or rather not evil so much as an illusionary dream of dreams.  And we have so many of them - the cancer of fantasy.  They run rampant through our thoughts.

Foolish - we base our lives on imagined occurances.  We imagine we will be rich - so we spend every penny because we believe money will always be there.  We imagine the worse will happen so we hoard every penny, take no chances, cause no waves; we try nothing new.  Etiher way - our expectations chain us to patterns of thought.  We believe these patterns to be real.

You have a relationship problem.  You think, "I will say this.  Then he or she will say that.  Then i will say this.  Then my partner will understand everything, apologize, and all will be smiles again."  Great expectations.  How is it that we believe we know what another person is going to say?  We don't know what WE will say the next moment.

We have an extraordinary inability to see WHAT  IS and to not take it any further than that.  It's like we can't leave it alone.  We have to keep worrying with it.  Fidgeting with reality till we distort it to something we think we want.  No wonder we are so disappointed.

I was fascinated by the first Matrix movie.  I thought, "Yes!  There it is in a super sexy black leather overcoat - we are asleep."  We are only dreaming of a world we wished to be.  But we aren't really in it - we aren't really touching that world with our full senses.  We are too busy dreaming to be bothered with a thing called Reality.