Dilemma
Well, this happened last week and it made me realize what a hypocrite I am. I remember hearing about the woman freezing to death because no one responded to her cries of agony. I thought the people that let her die were sick human beings; we were in a way seeing the deterioration of human empathy and doing what is right. I keep on telling myself that I would act a certain way when faced in a certain way but really, would I honestly do what I say? Anyway, last Monday at around 7pm after class, I was going to the parking lot to go home and I heard some strange noise; at the time I had my headphones on so I wasn't sure if what I was hearing were cries of sorrow or if just two people were joking around. All of a sudden a guy said, "Turn the fuck around, it's none of your business,” as any tough guy would say, naturally. He was talking to the guy beside that was telling him to calm down and to not let anything get out of control. I noticed the chick at the car was crying quite heavily, what the guy did to her is beyond me; I didn't make any assumptions at this point on. I walked to my car and turned it on so it could heat up. At this moment, everything that I said in the past came to me; what happened to standing up for what is right? I was second guessing myself as to whether or not I should do something and what I thought was a natural reaction to help, wasn't so natural anymore... Anyway, I knew that the location in which the security guards were located was less than a minute away so I drove off as quickly as I could to contact them. As I left, I noticed there was a security guard parked to the side of the road so I informed him of what was going on so he immediately left to the scene and I followed to make sure he was actually going to do what he said. I watched from afar for 10 minutes and then I left. The drive home was a bad one needless to say. I just questioned myself a lot - Did I do the right thing or should I have done more? What if in the time that I was getting the security guard, a physical altercation occurred? Was it natural for me to hesitate to take action? Why did I hesitate anyway if I told myself millions of time that we should be willing to die for the truth and what is right. It's almost as if were conditioned to do nothing as long as we aren't pushed to our extreme limits. And I thought intensely on this question, if I saw the same guy physically harming the chick, would've I had stepped in? I can easily say, “Yes, of course because it's the right thing,” but would I really do it? What if I end up dying in the process? Isn't that selfish of me to think of my own life? Why do I even cherish it so much? Or is it because I know that most of all, my parents would dramatically be affected if I had died? As much as I try to come up with a legitimate excuse, there really isn't and any excuse I make is selfish. What about her parents? Siblings? Friends? How would it affect them to know that she died when it could've been prevented? How could I ever live with myself knowing that I was too afraid to possibly save someone else's life even if it meant putting my own life in harm's way? I really hope I never find myself in such a circumstance because I really don't know what I'd do...