Responsibilities redux

[sobrique]

And now to what I was going to write about.

Responsibility again.

One cannot deny that each of us have our own responsibilities. Taking them away from someone is supreme contempt. But helping them in dealing with them is true kindness.

So ask yourself this:

A woman is struggling through a door, with armloads of shopping. She's also got a toddler with her and is having trouble with arms full.
Do you say "it's not my responsibility" and let her get on with it?
Do you hold the door to let her through?
Do you take some of the weight off her arms and carry it the rest of the way?

You're on your way to work, and you're running late. You might just about get in the door on time if you push. Just in front of you, a car suddenly swerves and crashes into a tree.
Do you stop, and see if this random stranger is ok?
Do you tell your self "it's not my responsibility, and I'm already late. Someone else will deal with it" and carry on?

Someone is being attacked by three or four thugs. You're not convinced that if they turned on you, then you'd not take a few bruises.
Do you walk on by, and pretend not to see?
Do you stop, watch, wait for them to finish and offer a hand?
Do you intervene. Do you make it your responsibility?

I'm not going to do this as a poll. I'd just like you to think for a minute. Which would you choose. And which _should_ you choose.
Then turn it around. You're in these situations. How would you feel about each of the responses?
It's the same question. It's just a different magnitude.
Too many would walk on by.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I've been in a situation slightly the same as the last one, and I didn't do anything. There was a big man beating up a small woman who knew each other in the door of a shop one Saturday night in the middle of town, and if I had stepped in to do anything to get him off her he would have just decked me and carried on beating her up. I didn't have my phone, so I couldn't call the police...but I couldn't walk away. So I watched, and he saw me and said "What you looking at? You want to end up like this?" - I stayed quiet and ducked into the doorway and eventually he walked away and left her on the ground, conscious but upset. I walked over, made sure she was breathing and things but didn't touch her, and in a couple of seconds a group of people came around the corner, picked her up, called the police etc. - I whispered to her that I'd seen it and did she want me to stay around, and she said no. So I did the stupidest thing and walked away, leaving her to be looked after by these other people.

Every time I think about it now, I know I should have done something more, run around the corner and asked to borrow somebody's phone to call the police with, shouted at the top of my lungs, something...but I couldn't. I was just frozen to the spot. It might have been that my standing there stopped him doing anything worse than hit her because there would have been a witness, but still. Being in the situation was so different to when you think about what you would do in a situation like that. I get so angry at people who don't call the police when they see something like this, or don't help if the assailant is one person and the passers-by are in a group, but I've done nearly the same myself. I would say it's the worst thing I can think of having done.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I can think of times I've been in similar situations. Not quite the same, but a number of times that I've thought I could/should have done something.

It's not something I'm especially proud of.

I can also say that I _have_ intervened. On that occasion, I got my glasses broken and in impressive shiner.

I can understand how/why it happens. I also truly believe it should not.

I hope to never see such things happen again. I also hope that I will find the courage to act.