Yes, there are a thousand reasons not to do the right thing. The thing you know is the right thing, the think you know you'll feel guilty about if you don't.
A thousand reasons to go along. To pass the buck. To look the other way. To not do what you think is right, or to delay action to ask someone else what they think, or to simply do the safe thing and claim that you figured that those other folks would take care of it, so you don't have to.
But a million reasons don't justify. Or excuse. Or, speaking from my own personal, small experience, help you sleep at night.
Yeah, it's about Penn State. But it's about a lot more than that. #ddtb
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No more dismissal, no more excuses « Decrepit Old Fool
No more dismissal, no more excuses. By decrepadmin, on November 13th, 2011. (Trigger alert). This article in Scientific American has been making the rounds, in defense of witnesses who don't inter…
One of the nicest things anyone did for me when Arthur was a toddler happened when he and I were both having a bit of a meltdown, outside a grocery store. A woman with obvious experience with small children came up, and distracted Arthur out of his meltdown, allowing me to get calm again. She didn’t yell at me, insult me, or anything of the sort. She saw a bad situation she could change, and did so, preventing it becoming worse. I’ve carried that forward as often as possible.
It’s not a big thing, but it makes positive differences.
When I was still living in Claremont, I don’t know what I was doing out at the early hour when I was driving home westward, but on the frontage-ish road above the tracks just south of the campuses, I happened to see a car a block or so behind me stop, and a young woman get out, wearing evening clothes and shoes not for long walks. There was yelling, and then the car sped off. Those were during the days when mobile phones were huge things the size of a very thick phone book, very expensive and rare for the ordinary person to have, so I couldn’t have called police.
I turned the car around, drove slowly up to her, having rolled down the window, stopped and suggested she get in, that I’d take her to her home, no questions asked. I don’t know what was wrong, but I didn’t want the driver to come back around and do something that would damage her. She muttered, and gave directions, but that was it.
I couldn’t not do it–I could see myself in a similar situation, and sowed what I want to reap.