On this day of thanksgiving, give thanks to all those sustainable non-acts of kindness. Remember when a gap in traffic finally opened up on Route 1 so you could change lanes? That space happened because someone wasn't using their car that day. And that uncluttered look of the curb on trash collection day? That was because someone didn't put the trash can out because it wasn't full yet. And that wonderful silence a few mornings ago when your neighborhood wasn't plagued by the din of leaf blowers? That was the morning a neighbor didn't hire a landscape crew, and raked their leaves instead.
Thanks to those who don't care that everything they do to make the world less annoying is invisible. It doesn't matter that their house looks the same from outside whether their furnace is running constantly or not. They keep the thermostat lower because it's the right thing to do. They don those slim, ultralight down coats and are as comfortable inside as they would be if the furnace were cranked and great gobs of invisible CO2 spewed from the chimney.
In a strange world where helping to save the planet is completely optional, what we value is made more sustainable by the kindness of strangers, or by what we ourselves do. Treasure those non-acts of kindness, the non-doing that makes the world a little quieter, a little roomier, and makes the life we love last a little longer.
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