Most mornings I walk a loop around my neighborhood. No variations, always the same path. It sets my rhythm, a Nadal-like tic of superstition. What varies (rarely the weather here in Santa Barbara) is how much trash I encounter. Sometimes a minuscule Twix wrapper, other times an entire outfit (pants, shirt, and hat), I’ve come to expect anything. I try to do my part, because I like the idea of picking up trash… but occasionally I find myself on the high horse, thinking, “How can someone leave this here? Literally, did someone just throw that Dr. Pepper can in someone’s garden? Why?????” It gets personal. Usually, I can let it go by reminding myself of what I control, attempting a check my co-dependency and omnipotence streak. Sometimes, even, I don’t pick up the trash, because I don’t feel like it. Sometimes I feel guilty for not picking it up, other times I don’t. Trash has become a big part of my day.
Wednesday, I was on one after scooping a second cashed cannabis container off the ground, thinking, “I do my part, so why don’t others? This is bullshit.” Having already forgotten that I myself have littered, humility punched me right in my self-righteous face.
I was driving past a grocery store, when my peripheral vision caught an exiting customer toss a wadded receipt toward the trash receptacle, where it glanced the rim, and landed lightly in the grass. No, she didn’t stop and pick it up, she kept on walking with a smile! I was incredulous, about to get the highest horse out of the barn, when I saw her white cane. She was blind.
Accordingly, omnipotence and humility were my targets this week. On Monday, I tried to illustrate my improving relationship with intrusive thoughts in Anxiety’s Suprising (and Unlocking) Opposite , which has hinged upon surrender and admission of limitations inside “full purview living”. Anxiety is as hard to write about as it is to understand; it might be awhile before I take aim there again. Thursday’s Would I Still Go to Medical School? proffered a retrospective second chance from today’s vantage point. It was spooky revisiting that era of life; just thinking about it rolled in those familiar clouds of confusion. Though, knowing what I know now lifted my perspective into a resolute “No, I would not”, while maintaining “I wouldn’t change a thing”.
Since Wednesday, I’ve been thinking about that woman outside the grocery store and how she tried her best, smiling, while I picked up trash I didn’t have to, frowning. Who was happier? Where was the blame? She was happier and I the wrong judge of morality. She understood her limitations and was doing her best. I did not understand my limitations and was doing what exactly? Saving the ocean from its trash burden?
At the end of the day, I just like picking up trash. I’m not much of a horse rider. Gonna try to stay in my lane.
(P.S. If you’d like to support me here in the after-medicine wilderness, a subscribe on YouTube or a follow on Instagram throws a long on the fire. Thank you!)
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
