Leave things better than you found them: better for yourself, those around you, and those that come after you. Clean up after yourself, be kind to others, think about your impact. Why listen to me? You don’t have to. But if you did, I bet your life might improve in ways you didn’t expect. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt you or anyone else, so why not?
I’ll start small. Words. Your words impact those around you. Are you spreading positivity? Negativity? Information? Ideas? Do you have a goal with that mouth of yours? Most don’t. Or perhaps they do but only subconsciously. Consider this: If you are complaining, you’re dumping on someone else. Now they’re holding that burden or might be left with a sour feeling when you walk away. How about leaving them with a compliment or a thought, rather than the burden of your minor life annoyances? I understand it’s better to talk about certain things, but perhaps it shouldn’t be with the first person you come in contact with. If you want to talk smack about a person who bugs you, maybe do a check-in first. Will this actually make you feel better? Do you think the person on the other end of this conversation would consent to you offloading this information on them? If so, then perhaps it is better to share. But I would argue that more often than not, it’s better to let it pass. Not every thought needs to be expressed. Sometimes not giving attention to the bother decreases its power over you.
The next way we can leave things better than we found them is to simply not make things worse. As an adult, your entrance should not result in chores for others. In the home, your spouse, child, or roommate should not be able to discern the chain of events that took place after your arrival based solely on the trail you’ve left behind. How inconsiderate! It’s a fact that humans feel better in tidy spaces. It’s also so much easier to simply pick up after yourself as you progress through your day. Chances are good that your home environment will be improved if a concerted effort toward tidiness is made. Be a model for kids, or show your respect for your spouse or roommate by taking an active role in the responsibility of the routine tidying. Any thing that you do requires cleaning up afterward: waking up, making coffee, eating, dressing, and even reading require you to clean up something afterward! Really, tidying should come as naturally as breathing or eating. Being responsible for your own mess in a timely manner will likely improve your home or office surroundings, your mood, your relationship with the people you live or work with, and can even spill over into attitudes that your kids carry with them out the door and into life.
Being responsible for your own mess is necessary both in the home and in the greater world. We find ourselves now in a time where we need to be thinking about our own and other people’s messes constantly: from littering (on Earth, in oceans, even in space, for goodness sake!) to our carbon footprints. There have been laws written to combat the harm that was done when we didn’t know any better and for people now who just don’t care. When I lived in Thailand, I visited a place called Monkey Island. I was so excited to get to watch the monkeys play, sleep, or people-watch. But my major takeaway from that experience was, if I were to come back, I’d like to bring garbage bags. The island is completely inhabited by monkeys and visited by tourists to see the monkeys daily. The tourists come with their tourist plastics, drinks, food for the monkeys, etc. It was gross. The monkeys will run up and take things from tourists’ hands, but monkeys don’t understand what they’re getting and don’t have the ability to deal with trash responsibly. I think if you want to bring the monkeys food, which you shouldn’t, it should be folded into a banana leaf rather than plastic bags. And, as the monkeys will steal right from your hands (daring little thieves), tourists should not be permitted to bring any non-compostable items off the boat. But the willingness to invest in that kind of reasoning, to inconvenience yourself for the sake of some monkeys on an island and their environment, or to risk unhappy tourists not spending their tourist dollars, is a tough sell. Nobody likes rules.
People typically don’t wants to be told what to do, especially if it’s new. Where my parents live, recycling is limited and items need to be sorted and washed, then stored in your home before they can be taken to the depot. My dad considers the cleaning, sorting, storing, and delivering to be unrecognized volunteer hours and I cannot disagree, really. In my small city, a resident is only allowed one bag of garbage a week so it becomes necessary to recycle and compost: you must. It’s when the choice to do it goes away that people become firmly for or against. But the fact is: if people were making the right choice to begin with, the rules would not be necessary. Why do people need to be forced to do the right thing? I never understood people who had children but did not care about the environment. Having children is an indication you care about the future but how can you care about the future and NOT the environment? It’s contradictory.
Do you know what makes it so much easier to keep your home tidy and create less waste? Minimalism. Or if you’re uncomfortable with that word, as I know many are, let’s say consumption reduction. Stop buying so much stuff that you have excess and nowhere to put it all. Often, people soothe themselves by with the affirmation they will donate their older clothes to the needy when they’re buying new ones. Let’s be honest, chances are very good the clothes were not great quality to begin with so nobody wants them when you’re done with them– they don’t have anything left to offer, not warmth or comfort: they are throwaway clothes. The needy don’t need that. If taken to donation, those clothes would be put in the rubbish bin. This is the bin that goes to be shredded and shipped overseas to be made into something else, or just to be transferred to a landfill. Why? So you could have a somewhat trendy shirt to wear 10 times before it lost its lustre and shape? The same goes for toys and trinkets, and the plentitude of other things we buy (usually on sale) each day, week, or month. How about food? How much food goes to waste each week? Taking the time to make a plan for meals can help significantly reduce your waste, and also save you time and money. It’s hard to want something that you can have and not get it. But I think there’s a good case for doing just that.
I realized long ago that nobody really cares what I think or do. But they do pay attention to where I spend my money. When it comes to money, everyone is listening. Each dollar spent is like a vote. So now, when I buy cosmetics, I ensure I’m buying from companies that don’t test on animals. I will pay more for an ethically sourced or fair wage piece of clothing or food. The more individuals think and act (ie shop and spend) in a manner that shows they value leaving things nicer than how they found it or, even more importantly, they DE-value those products that cause harm, then maybe prices will change and shopping conscientiously might become more financially advantageous to consumers. The thing is, there will always be people who just buy whatever is the cheapest, for whatever their reason. But if some of the people before that come along and create a shift in marketing and pricing etc, then it might become easier and cheaper for future consumers to support these products that help with the good.
If you make a mental note to do a check-in each time there’s a decision to be made, you can easily leave things better than you found them. Going to the grocery store? Say something nice to someone or pick up that fallen apple in the fruit aisle. Walking down the sidewalk, pick up that piece of litter or push the pebbles back into their place in the neighbour’s yard. Dropping kids off at school? Why not go in and read to the KG class for 10 mins? Heading into the office? Make a pot of coffee for your office mates, or invite the newbie to lunch. These are small and achievable ways to make positive impacts. But what about larger impacts? Are you a person who has the opportunity to be a change-maker? Could you run a business with positive impact in mind? There are business owners who want to create positive change in their industry by making their goals to care for their employees with scholarships, to use locally sourced foods to support farms in the area, to invest back into the community, etc., rather than to make the most amount of money possible. Their customers understand they’re getting a quality product or that they’re investing in people when they pay money for this business’ product or service. On a larger scale, you could be that business; on a smaller scale, if you’re going to lunch, go to THAT place!
The willingness to leave things better than you found them is a willingness to make positive change. It takes thought, time, energy, and resources. But I believe that it gets easier over time. As your decisions become more intentional, I think the positivity they create will be rewarding and thus will happen more frequently until they become routine. And with that routine, maybe it takes less thought, time, energy, and even resources to do your good.
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