A few weeks ago I shared a post called ‘Own Your Shit.’ linked here. The theme was around the idea that owning our mistakes in real time, directly and concisely, is the fastest most direct route to moving on and mitigating further damage. When we humans make mistakes, and we all do, address them head on. Letting things fester and allowing folks to create their own fictional narratives of a situation usually doesn’t end well.

In that post and conversation, the word “shit” can be replaced with anything that clearly belongs to you. Take ownership, accountability, act if needed and by all means don’t wait. Time is the enemy when it comes to making mistakes. The longer we wait, the bigger they can get. But the direction is a bit vague, since “shit” can mean a lot of different things. So in this post, I will get more specific while illustrating the point with a very simple yet common object: A Christmas tree.

I live in a condo that I love. I don’t love how close the driveways are to each other, or how small a space I have to operate in when I am getting Zach in and out of the car in my driveway. It’s narrow and on either side are the HVAC units for each of the properties. Not a lot of wiggle room, but that may be my biggest complaint about the place which is saying a lot about how much I enjoy living here.

Not only is the driveway space narrow, but it gets super windy. The rest of the world can be quiet, but often the backsides of these condos and their narrow driveways and 5 story buildings create a wind tunnel of sorts, the kind that remind me of trying to walk through Manhattan on a blustery freezing January evening. The kind of strength and wind chill that literally takes your breath away.

When we all put out our garbage and recycles, it can become a real mess with items blowing around. I don’t like putting my recycle and garbage bins out unless I know I will be here to monitor their where a-bouts. I looked pretty silly when walking the neighborhood looking for my recycle container which had moved several units, once emptied last year. But alas, I looked no more or less silly than others doing the same thing.

We are all in the same boat so when my neighbor’s empty beverage cans, random envelopes, personal trash items and Amazon package wrapping land in my small strip of homestead, I pick them up and put them in my own bins in the garage. I do so knowing that at some point my “shit” is probably landing in someone else’s small carve out of the world and it will also be taken care of. No harm no foul.

Then there is the Christmas tree. And it is a perfect illustration of the importance of owning our shit. A few weeks ago, in March, three months after Christmas, someone in my neighborhood put their dead, dried out Christmas tree out for what I imagine was garbage or recycle collection.

But it landed right in the small space next to my driveway where the trash sometimes accumulates making it even more difficult for me to maneuver. It was so dry and almost bare, it blew around easily. I figured it might belong to one of the near-by neighbors, and I assumed that eventually they would see that it was not removed and would own their shit, and remove it from my already tiny area of a driveway.

To no avail. Days passed. Garbage and recycle trucks came and went. Every day, I maneuvered around that Christmas tree, in and out of my car, looking around as if to say “Hey, you know who you are, get this tree out of my driveway!”

But no one was owning their shit. It’s hard not to become resentful when I am continually reminded of its bulky presence. I tried to be patient and a few weeks went by. The tree remained a clunky obstacle until last week when arrived home and it was literally out in the street. I couldn’t get around it with my car so I placed the car in park, got out and moved the prickly tree to the curb where the mailboxes sit, across from my condo. No need putting back on my own property.

Surely the “owner” will see it there and realize that despite their intentions of having it collected, that never happened and they would reclaim it. This was my ‘generous assumption’ (see former post here.) The next day I didn’t see it there. My faith in humanity was restored! Finally, someone was accountable for this drifting symbol of abandonment and I was so happy to have my driveway back, and not have to look at that sad Charlie Brown Christmas tree every day.

I enjoyed a few days of this new found spaciousness and “tree-free” driveway. Then yesterday, when I went to collect my mail, I realized that someone had moved the tree behind the mailboxes and stashed it there. Or more a more generous assumption may even be that the wind planted it behind the boxes. Either way, there it sat, and still sits.

Ugh, I am all for pitching in but going back to our intention to own our shit, it gets especially frustrating when others don’t do the same. Is someone seriously imagining that after a month of this dead tree blowing around in my driveway, and now over on the curb that it will just magically disappear? That someone else will step in and own your tree? And your shit?

Enter: The Serenity Prayer. I have two choices: Allow it to sit there with the other dozens of neighbors, including its owner, or take matters into my own hands and drive it to the dump. And I opt for the first, since lots of the work I do is focused on a larger intention of staying present, detached from outcome and neutral. So there it remains.

And I do welcome it as an opportunity to go from theory to practice. My choice is to stop letting it bother me and let it go (See former ‘Let that shit go.’ post here.)

But really? Tomorrow is April 1st. At what point does someone finally own up and take responsibility for the abandon evergreen? Or do they just wait it out? The choice to leave our responsibilities on the curb with the hopes that someone else will sort out our trash is just immature. And this is not someone that I would really want to get to know or hang out with, because if their Christmas tree is still floating around on April 1st, I bet there are other areas of that person’s life that are neglected and left to the work of others.

The point? Own your shit, and your Christmas tree in real time. Don’t leave it for others to pick up. And in case we can’t, because we are sick, or our family member requires so much care that we haven’t slept in days, allow others to help. That’s the time that the karma of having helped others when we could, replenishes us and the community pool of support. And when we can, we continue to make good karma deposits in the support bank knowing that when there is an actual need we can’t meet that it too will be taken care of.