There is no such thing as waste. Look at nature and you will see that this is an absolute and observable fact. Literally, everything is converted into use. Everything is being recycled. Some things take longer than other things (such as in the case of nuclear “waste”) because of its complexity, but eventually, everything is converted into use.

One day the old barn on the country road you’ve driven by countless times, the one with the sagging roofline and missing windows, will be gone; entirely taken back by “nature”. Left to nature, weeds and oxidation and wind and rain and temperature fluctuations and the march of time will see everything fade away and slowly converted to another use.

Applying enough time and weight to today’s organic material will see it converted into oil, just as in the case of dinosaurs and dead plants of long ago. Dead-matter that floats in, and settles to, the bottom of the world’s oceans – no matter how shallow or how deep – gets eaten by some creature; converted to another use. Today’s living things become tomorrow’s food. That’s nature. Nature is constantly recycling.

The productive person will take the “garbage” experiences; the pain, the disappointments, the failed plans …and every other otherwise negative aspect of life …and convert it to use. He or she will find the usefulness of those events and choose to appreciate them. 

By choosing to convert everything into use, the productive person will then find it easier to forgive others …and him- or herself. He or she will stop blaming others and God, and stop being angry with others …and God.

The productive person will acknowledge that nature has much to teach. If we wonder if it is a good idea to resist or accept unchangeable aspects of reality, nature suggests that we ought to just “go with it” rather than fight it. We fight it when we get angry, and stay angry, about wrongs done to us. We “go with it” when we choose to be grateful in all things.

All things. That’s a lot of things.

Nature is constantly recycling all matter. Man is the only part of God’s Creation that routinely makes the conscious choice to resist that natural flow of things, often choosing instead to hold on to grievances and to things and to ways of being that just don’t work very well. We would do better to make use of the usable aspects of every seemingly unexplainable event that happens in our lives and to let go of the rest.

Do you recycle? Maybe it’s time to start.