Prius Driving Whole Foods Shopping Litter-bugging Hypocrites

On my bicycle commute to work I rode past a Whole Foods Market shopping bag filled to the brim with trash, lying in the middle of the road.  I was reminded of the following passage in the Dhammapada: "Bright but senseless are the fine but empty words of the man who does not mean what he says."  A few weeks ago, I read about a research project in Canada that, according to the authors, demonstrates that when we do things that we think are good, we accumulate a sort of credit that allows us to be ironically less altruistic in our future interactions. I couldn't help but picture someone, upon finishing their $40 hot bar dinner on the way back from their post-yoga shopping trip throwing the bag out of their Prius window. Upon further reflection, I decided that this was not really a fair or productive exercise and finally recognized that it's not like I stopped to pick it up. I was too busy condemning the imaginary scofflaw (who I am sure was listening to his ipod at the time.) This brings me to perhaps the more relevant part of that passage: "Look to your own faults. What you have done or left undone. Overlook the faults of others." And still I try...

You can read the article yourself and decide what you think: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/03/01/0956797610363538.full