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Trash and garbage are not meant to be kept. They are to be thrown-out, disposed of, incinerated, and or buried underground so it won’t stink and spread out diseases. We do this because we’d like to believe ourselves as “clean” and “sanitary.” No sensible person would keep trash and garbage anywhere inside the house for a long period of time. You do away with it as quickly as you can.
But in our life we don’t do the same. Such “cleanliness” more often we don’t apply to the way we conduct our lives, most especially when we interact with the rest of the world. If we will just pause for ten minutes and try “looking” inside our hearts and examine its contents, I think most of us are in for a big disappointment. We will find and realize that no matter how squeaky clean we are on the outside, no matter how decent and dignified we try to project ourselves to others, we are not as clean as we would like to think of ourselves. There’s bound to be some filth rotting somewhere from the inside. Like a whitewashed tomb, neat and clean on the outside but dead and rotting on the inside.
Sadly speaking, we have been carrying all our lives trash and garbage we’re suppose to get rid of. We become without knowing it --- trash keepers and garbage collectors! But unlike the real garbage collectors who collects trash and dispose it, we don’t do the same thing. We don’t dispose of our trash and garbage. We collect them and we keep them! Yes, we keep the trash and the garbage in our lives! We become a huge dustbin where we accumulate all, if not, some of the bad qualities of our personality. And the worst part of it all is that, we collect other people’s trash too and keep them as our own and we seem to love it and enjoy it, which makes it even more tragic!
We must learn how to eliminate things that are undesirables in our lives no matter how difficult it is and no matter how hopeless we think we are in reforming ourselves. We must learn how to filter out things that puts a question mark on our reputation and personality, that is, if you care enough to have the respect and esteem of others. Eliminating the bad ones and adopting what is clearly good may take some time, but by no means impossible. Those nasty habits and vices that we have adopted all these years, either from other people or from our own, we must try to "dispose" of. Like our predilection to foul language and vulgar words. George Washington said “that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detest and despises it.”
Then we have also those ill manners that have stuck to us through our growing years until we have become so comfortably accustomed to it. Not realizing that in order “to succeed in the world one must be well mannered” said Voltaire. But unfortunately this too seem to be the bane of many.
Then we also have our bad tempers. Really, nasty tempers that we readily explode everytime things don’t turned out the way we expect things to be. And we fly into such rage that we don’t care who’s going to be sideswiped, whether they’re friends or foes… we just do not care who’s going to get hurt.
Then there are those “trash” thrown in our way by other people in the course of our interaction with them, whether in good times or bad ones. Trash like “insults,” offensive remarks, disrespect, and humiliations. We must learn how to insulate ourselves against such things. Always reminding ourselves that we do not necessarily have to accept those trash hurled against us. Overcome evil by good. “If they spoke evil against you, let your life be so that no one will believe them.” They may hurt your pride but not your character. “The best way to avenge thyself is not to become like the wrongdoer” so said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
I remember this one person where he was so bitter about his father. He didn't talk to him for 20 years. He didn't even pay a visit at the hospital where his father was confined because of a terminal illness. His father died eventually. But on the day of his burial, the son appeared, with sad and forlorn face. He was seen whispering at the casket... "I love you dad!..." "If only we could still go back in time..." But it was too late for the old man to hear it. It's a sad occassion always to see people part ways because of bitter events in their life. The son had carried with him all those "trash" that was hurled to him 20 years ago and he never let go until it was too late.
It doesn't have to be you. Tell yourselves always that you don’t deserve to go down to that level. You are a person living in a higher plane, regardless of status and position in life. You are a progressive individual not regressing like others. Don’t be like those who have carried around all those times damaging things that have been said and done against them many years ago. Trash and garbage they never let go and manage to keep in their lives and thus remained bitter all the way.
You don’t have to follow suit.
St. Augustine said “this is the perfection of a man, to find his own imperfection.” So watch yourself and start cleaning your own backyard. It is a sign that you are progressing and not regressing as a human being. Strive to develop a good and pleasing personality. “A man’s own good breeding is the best security against other people’s ill manners,” says Lord Chesterfield.
Always remind yourself with these words…
I
AM NOT A GARBAGE COLLECTOR
AND I REFUSE TO ACCEPT
OTHER PEOPLE’S TRASH!!
Please forgive the author. He is trying his darndest best to write, although he doesn't have any writing or journalistic experience. He is suffering from a mild delusion that he was a best selling author and can do it all like anybody else. So please be kind to him