Throw away or dispose properly. It's your choice.

This is the slogan for a campaign launched by the county of an important Brazilian capital, printed on a billboard displaying a hand over a piece of paper in the ground.

It is related to education. It is related to citizenship. It invites the citizens to ponder on what kind of city they wish for themselves: a clean, beautiful town or streets filled with trash.

It invites the citizen to be responsible, deriving from his decision that naturally is related to his moral background, his ethics, his commitment as a citizen.

Actually, everything that surrounds us, somehow, is our responsibility. And decisions.

We can have a house on a pleasant neighborhood, but we will only have pleasant neighbors if we show kindness and good manners.

And this is done by the little things. Let us consider, for instance, when we have to take our car very early in the morning to go to work.

We can start the car quietly, without accelerating too noisily and, this way not waking up our neighbor that still sleeps.

Or we can make as much noise as we believe we are entitled to, thinking that, since we are awake this early, everyone might as well get up at this same hour.

We can clean the front of our house, sweeping the sidewalk carefully to avoid spreading dirt to our neighbor's sidewalk. Or we can go carelessly throwing it all right to the sides and trashing the front of the houses nearby.

We can be kind in traffic, stopping for a little extra second allowing the other car waiting by the side of the road, to enter the road in front of us.

Or we can be completely insensitive and let the driver get tired of waiting, till the long line of vehicles is over.

Sympathy, antipathy. We decide between one or another.

We can walk into an elevator and greet people. Or we can just pretend they are all invisible.

We can be kind and hold the doors for a while allowing someone who is coming  in a hurry may enter.

Or we can press the button  and let the door to be closed, right in the face of the person who was trying to catch the lift.

We can think only of ourselves, living like there is no one else in the world.

Or we can live, looking around us, noticing that someone may need help and help him.

We can pretend to be deaf or make ourselves available to listen to someone asking directions and  offer him the information.

We can pretend to be blind and not see the obese fellow, or the pregnant woman, or the elderly man standing in the public transport.

Or we can be compassionate and offer our seat, certain that this someone needs it more than we do.

Even if at the end of the day, we are so tired, our feet are hurt and our body screams for rest.

Let us think about this and be willing to contribute, from now on, to a more harmonious, fair and happy world we dream so much about.

Spiritist Moment Team.
December 03.2010.