There are many reasons why we don’t act to make our world better. One of them is the belief that someone else will do it. Someone else will give up their seat to the pregnant woman. Someone else will help that elderly man pick up the bag he dropped. Someone else will allow that car to merge into the lane. Someone else will pick up that piece of garbage.
We can go about our business and someone else will take care of it.
I’d like to suggest that we think differently. I’d like to suggest that we pretend there isn’t anybody else. If someone else was going to do it then the pregnant woman wouldn’t be standing in the aisle and the garbage wouldn’t be lying on the floor. There is no someone else.
You be the someone else.
See how much change happens then!
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Well said. It’s easy to be part of the crowd, thinking that our actions don’t count and so it isn’t worth doing. What a wonderful world we’d live in if we all tried to be the someone else. 🙂
Thanks Richard. I almost failed this test myself today. An elderly woman at the airport needed help getting off a bench. She was calling to me but I wasn’t sure she was. I thought maybe there was someone behind me. I got it right eventually, but I probably should have asked her sooner. It’s worth the extra effort.
Well said, indeed. Reminds me of the murder of Kitty Genovese in ’64.
Bingo! It reminded me of that as well. That’s how I intended to begin the post but in 2004 (40th anniversary of the murder) there were a bunch of articles contesting the traditional account that nobody tried to help. Apparently some people did call the police. Anyway, I was too lazy to research this when I could make my point anyway.
Thanks for reading and commenting!