Miss Ann my favorite teacher has always taught me how to be neat, she would always remind me to pick up dirt around my surroundings and avoid littering the floor.
On this fateful day, I was about to leave the class for home when I saw a group of boys eating bananas, two of them disposed of the dirt in the trash can while the other boy dropped the peel on the floor, I nodded my head in dismay and asked him to pick up the dirt, I started to narrate to him how that could endanger one's life.
"Hey listen to me, this could cause a lot of chaos in the school, imagine if someone was in a haste and stepped on this, what might be the outcome? He/she might slip and fall, resulting in a broken arm, leg, or even severe injury, it might even be you or your friends who would fall, victim. Asides from that, it breeds flies and makes the class unsafe, do you know that flies cause diarrhea?" I said to him.
The boy got agitated and wanted to beat me up, "how dare you tell me what to do?" In anger he replied and so he left without picking up the peel.
The other boys started to make a mockery of me, "Joe the neatest, look here, Aunty Ann only taught us that because she had to, it's not a big deal, the cleaner would pick it up, after all, she was being paid for the job".
Well, I knew what they did wasn't right, but I wanted them to realize it, I started to wish one of them will eventually slip on the peel, but that wouldn't happen, so I walked back to where the banana peel was, I was wearing a black booth shoe my grannie bought for me, so fine that I was even about to step on the peel so that I could stamp my footprint on it and probably leave it as well.
Then I recalled a word of wisdom my grannie told me, "two wrongs don't make a right, you must always do the right thing even if you're the only one doing it," honestly It was a battle between my head and my pride.
Eventually, I gave in to my head, I humbly bent down and picked it up, and headed to the trashcan to dispose it of. "At least, I did the right thing", I said to myself.
The next day at school was prize-giving, and I noticed Miss Ann always smiling at me, well, I would always smile back.
The principal came out to give a speech and then she called me out, she started to tell the whole school how thoughtful I was, she was standing behind the door watching the whole scenario of yesterday, and none of us were aware.
I was awarded as being the neatest and most obedient student of the year. Miss Ann came out and hugged me.
I was honored for doing the right thing in the end and the other boys were disciplined for being such a jerk.
When I got home, I narrated all to my grannie, and she was proud of me, she reminded me to keep doing the right thing whether it was appreciated or not," Joe, the universe takes note of everything we do, who would have thought that the little act of thoughtfulness will yield a great result? We must be conscious of everything we do, just an act of negligence might have ruined the beautiful outcome, even if you're the only one standing tall, don't be afraid".
From that moment in, I vowed to keep doing the right thing even if it was hard.