Undergraduate / "my brain thinking more maturely" - Inequality（Personal & national concerns) [3]

It's much too long! Please look at it and see where I can delete or amend? . I'm greatly thankful with any suggestion!

Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.

"Just give it to me."
"Thanks." I handed over two bags with a smile.
I have walked by this corner and given bags of garbage to this old couple, the trash cleaners of our high school since my first senior year. Wearing shabby gloves and caps, wrapped in scruffy clothes with patches on both sleeves, the two senior citizens are always shoveling piles of garbage everyday in that inconspicuous trash station. For more than 100 times, we have had the same conversation as shown above, and this time still, there was not any difference. It seems that they have been used to their current lives in which nobody is likely to try to help or even concern about them. That is a shame of our country that inequality still exists anywhere and everybody just holds the attitude that that is the way it is!

I do not know whether students here greet them, smile to them, or even say 'thanks' for disposing of their trash. I myself am utterly sympathetic towards the couple and extremely upset about my incapability of helping them, who could have been staying at home and enjoying their old ages by raising parrots or playing Tai Ji. They also need to earn some extra gain by gathering the bottles and cans from waste mountains and selling out them which are nothing for privileged people like us. I felt aching for two of them whenever I recall their images.

I was gloomy all the time in that week even after I got home on Friday. After the dinner, I unexpectedly came forward to wash the dishes for my grandma who was wearily feeding my three-year-old naughty sister and picking up the rice dropped on the floor. I could not tell why, but only felt a voice from my heart compelling me to share in the pressure with her. After finishing washing the last spoon, I felt relieved and relaxed, since I was satisfied that I reduced the stress of my grandma through my actual deeds I then thought of the couple in my school and numerous other people in our nation who are not getting their deserved welfare and rights. This thought aroused my resolution to make contribution into this serious national problem. Although no country-wide influence will stem from my action, I believe that I should start practically in life like what I did at home, to at least improve the situations around me.

After coming back from home, I wrote a letter to the principal, suggesting changing the trash people and giving the couple adequate unemployment compensation. Unfortunately, the principal told me it was unfeasible because, without any children, the couple could not sustain their lives if they lost their jobs. I was frustrated, but I soon came up with another idea. As the sanitation monitor of my class, I put a large carton next to the class dust bin and urged my classmates to throw all their empty bottles and cans in there. Never selling them out, I carried the box to that familiar corner as soon as the box was full. Meanwhile, I organized some visits to different welfare houses to inquire about the lives of either senior citizens or orphans. I also helped organize many charity bazaars to collect money for children in poor families in Guizhou province, which is an extremely undeveloped region. All that I have dedicatedly done merely stem from my intense desire to reduce the level of inequality.

However, I realized gradually that money and materialistic assistance are radically not the key to solving this problem, because inequality can be reduced only if the rights and freedom of inferior groups are guaranteed. Even though China has gone through progressive growth since the economic reform after 1978, I think policies which increase social welfare are needed to help poor who undergo the pains brought by current social structure. Even now, as the organizer of those activities, I try to impart my thought and idea to my friends and classmates and evoke their willingness to help unequally treated people. Gratefully many of them advocate my proposal.

These experiences formed great lessons to me because I was thankful to see my brain thinking more maturely. I used to plan my future mostly about myself and fancy my billionaire dream. It was not wrong in ethics, but now, after the ablution of the social investigations, I intend that I shall struggle for a better social construction. I am not sure if the old woman will still be in my high school and ask me for boxes of empty bottles when I get back to my high school in several years, but I will devote myself to mitigate the inequality issue, and I would like to see the couple enjoying their lives after a policy reform.