Why people who talk trash have no idea what they are talking about

Who is going to take out the trash? It doesn’t matter what day it is. If the trash is full, somebody has to take it out. Otherwise trash is going to start piling where it isn’t supposed to be, in the living space we share with our family. 

It has been said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. This may be why we have arguments about taking out the trash. Everyone has a different value system to determine what to keep, and what to let go of.

Once a week, a big truck moves through the neighborhood house by house, emptying the trash families have collected from garbage cans they have placed on the curb to go to the dump. In my mind, the moment the can is emptied into the truck is the moment the trash becomes garbage. After that, whatever you thought of as trash is gone, hopefully for good. 

 

Some things get put in the trash by accident, and they can't be replaced. That is one reason people hold on to their trash longer than they need to sometimes. Even if we think we don’t need something any longer, the fact that we thought we needed it once is reason enough to hold onto it. It’s ours after all. If we take it to the curb anyone might claim it. 

 

Someone else might do something that we either wanted to do ourselves, or was not what we would have wanted at all. I have read about boutique trash collectors going through the cans or bins of wealthy people in the toniest neighborhoods of San Francisco. Once it is on the curb, it is fair game. 

 

There is a law that says that once it’s on the curb, the garbage belongs to the city. However, if you know where Mark Zuckerberg lives, you might get to his house before the city does on garbage day. There are perfectly functional items a CEO of a tech company might no longer have a use for that can fetch a good price on the open market. 

If you are ready to let go of something, there is no telling what value somebody might find in your own trash either.

 

Notice that taking out the trash is one of the ways that you take responsibility for your actions. Keeping the common areas of the family home free from shame and blame is another way you take responsibility for stuff. 

Observe how the words that focus on the strengths and virtues of your family members make it possible for them to recover a sense of their value in the life of your family. 

 

Recognize that once your family’s trash has become garbage it does not belong to you anymore. Anyone can pick through it, and make something out of it that has no relationship to the meaning it had in your life in the first place, or why you threw it away. 

 

Respond by explaining to anyone who wants to make something out of what you let go of, that you don’t talk trash. If they have questions about why you threw something away, you can explain that your experience is your business. 

Your experience is what gives meaning to your life, and it is not for anyone else. You cannot share your experience even if you wanted to, so if somebody tries to talk trash about garbage you can tell them they have no idea what they are talking about.   

 

* GODSPEED stands for “Gather Only Data in Sync with the Purpose of Every Excellent Deed.”