A New Reason I Pick Up Trash Every Day

I’ve held back on sharing this because it felt too presumptuous.

To remind you the context, I’ve found that to lead on sustainability, you need experience in three areas:

Leading
Science
Living the values you promote

I know of almost no one with experience in all three. Not Gore, DiCaprio, Thunberg, or any of the big names people associate with sustainability. Previous guest Alexandra Paul fits the bill. For a while, I’ve contended that picking up litter gives me experience both leading and living the values I promote. Of course, it reduces the garbage immediately reaching the oceans too. Several other minor reasons.

The Reason I’m Sharing for the First Time

Another reason I hadn’t consciously realized myself yet. I meant to post it on July 4, but the post I did superseded it.

The new reason is that when it comes time to give this generation’s “I Have a Dream” or “I Am Prepared to Die” speech, I will have prepared myself. I don’t believe Martin Luther King could have given his speech during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He hadn’t lived enough. Likewise with Nelson Mandela, who had worked with the ANC for decades by the time of his speech.

When the time comes for the speech of how America and humanity can change to a culture of stewardship instead of the selfish destruction we’re practicing globally, however much we love our immediate loved ones, I will have played my scales.