Smug Versus Proud

I could say that I don't remember exactly whose idea it was to pick up a bag and start stuffing it with trash as my wife and I made our walk around the neighborhood. I could, but I know it was me. And I'm proud of that. Does that make me smug?
Opinions, as the philosopher once said, vary.
As we made our way along the streets and sidewalks around our house, we found more and more garbage. My wife picked up another bag and began to separate recycling from landfill. I could tell how clever she felt with this advancement. Maybe a little smug?
Opinions vary.
The mental shove I got to start picking up trash in the first place came from seeing Al Gore's Inconvenient Sequel over the weekend. Here I was, strolling through other people's rubbish, reflecting on all those high-minded ideals about global warming and carbon footprints and having opposable thumbs and the ability to bend at the waist. I was not helpless. I could make this one corner of the planet just a little more habitable by removing the fast food detritus that cluttered the gutters of my street.
Gutter clutter.
I'm proud of that one.
Or am I smug?
When we arrived back at our house, bags full and overflowing with the neighborhood's litter, my wife and I opened the gate to our driveway. The driveway that had a Prius parked on it. The driveway that ran in front of a house upon which had recently been mounted solar panels. This made us proud.
And a little smug. When we shoved all that trash into their respective bins, we had a moment to reflect on just how quickly the streets we had walked would be littered again, we became less smug. When we thought about all the ways that we could still be doing more to keep our planet from becoming uninhabitable, we realized that we still had so much left to do.
We stopped being smug, and got back to work.