How many times have you complaint on the dirty on the streets? How many times have you described as negligent the person who throws paper, cans, and empty bags through the car window, littering the highway?

Normally, the reaction is of displeasure and we usually say that those who proceed like that do it because they lack education.

However, there is an issue that seems to escape from our superficial observation. It is that, in a general way, some people, because they see dirt in public places, decide to be neglectful as well.

The paper of candies, chocolate bars, which could be stored in the pocket or in the purse until reaching a trash can, is discarded at any place. This means, on the floor.

By believing that one learns by example, a taxi driver has innovated with his car. When he was still an employee for cleaning in a company of taxis, he noticed that, at the end of the day, taxis looked like a trash can.

There was paper thrown on the floor, sticky seats and door handles. As soon as he got his professional driver’s license he put his idea into practice.

He polished well the car which he was given to drive. Got a pretty carpet.

Each time that a passenger left, he checked if everything was in order for the next customer.

He would always go back to the company with an impeccable taxi. Soon, he decided to put together small reproductions of famous paintings, inside the car.

Twenty-five years later, this taxi driver said: No one has ever disappointed me. Each passenger who entered the car would say how beautiful and different it was. And nobody would leave any dirt in it: not paper, nor remnants of ice-cream cones, or chewing gum.

Not even a small amount of dirt. And philosophizing he concluded: People like pretty things. If we plant more trees and flowers around the city, if we make the buildings more attractive, I bet more people would use the trash cans.

That driver has a good dose of reason. All of us, along with the gift of life, have also received an esthetic sense.

Most people do not need to learn about the rarity of beauty, of good tone. They act and react when it is found.

And, if they have the feeling that they are part of this beauty, they will contribute to it to extend everywhere.

And those are the people who are still making a big difference in the world. They are the ones who give examples for those who still do not have eyes to see.

These see an abandoned can on the sidewalk and collect it, to throw it, just ahead, in the trash can. Some are braver, when watching someone discarding paper on the street, approach and warn the careless person: My friend, you have dropped something back there.

These are the creatures that bend the selection of garbage, who pack it well and make it available, on the correct days, for the public collection.

These are the creatures who are concerned with recycling, with the correct disposal of products. Creatures who plant flowers, drench gardens, maintain the back and front yards always clean.

How about thicken the ranks of this type of person? After all, who wouldn’t want to live among the beauty, the cleanliness, the perfumes and health?

Spiritist Moment Team, based on the article Um táxi
meio diferente, by Norman Cousins, by Selections Reader’s Digest,
in December of 1982.
October 29.2013.