Change is never easy
"Is he dead?" I thought to myself as I saw a middle aged man lying motionless on the empty flooring in between shops beside the MRT station.
"Just walk away." the inner voice in me was nagging. "Don't look!"
I continued for a few steps and stopped. I remembered, it was just yesterday evening that I wish for the moral courage to do what is right and here I am, trying to walk away from a situation which I can possibly make a change.
The man was lying there, with his back to the exterior wall of a shop. I was standing there in the crowds again, for the second time in two days, looking at the man, lying silently on the ground. There were people buying their dinner and doing their late evening shopping in the shops; there were crowds of people rushing home, passing him by as if his existence was only my visual hallucination.
A little apprehension arose in me. "What if he was dead?" the fear in me asked. There wasn't any visible signs of the man breathing.
"But you can't walk away like this." my 'superego' was shouting at me.
I gathered my nerves and walked slowly towards him. I heaved a sigh of relief when I could see slight motions of him breathing as I came up close. I went to the control station, informed them of the situation and they proceed to call the police to handle the situation. As I was there beside the man, trying to ascertain the situation. Two foreigners stopped and asked if they could be of help. We went away after the station manager came to check the situation and assured us that she will call in the police.
On the way to my next destination, I reflected on my experience. The habitual tendency for us to ignore situations which doesn't involve us had been deeply rooted in us. And to change that normative tendency, two things are essential, awareness of the arising of the tendency and the will to change it. If we are not aware of the tendency arising within, it would become our automated reactions, which is to ignore the situations which may require our help to those in need. Like the experience that I went through earlier, even with the awareness of the arising of the norm, there must be an effort involved to make a deliberated choice, to go against the norm of ignoring, which is deeply rooted in us.
The first step to uniting the responsibility which is diffused, in the conditional milieu in which everyone is in, due to the bystander effect, is to take the first step to break the effect. There are people among us who have the empathy to help but they are hesitant; they prefer not to break 'the norm of ignoring' and to save ourselves from our conscience of ignoring the situation, we comfort ourselves by rationalizing that someone else will help the person in need, there is no need for us to do it. We create the bystander effect when all of us thinks the same. Together with those among us who are apathetic and we create, for ourselves a world which we complained endlessly about the lack of goodness.
'Be the change that you wish to see in the world.' Mahatma Gandhi
Two individuals among the waves of people who walked past before me and after me stopped and decided to take on the humanistic responsibility of helping another, when they saw me walking close to the man to assess the situation. Every single one of us have the power to break the bystander effect, and be the change that we wish to see in the world. Once one of us starts 'breaking the norm of ignoring', the empathetic ones among us will support each other.
We can change the world, one thought at a time, one act at a time, one person at a time. And we start from ourselves; the world is a reflection of who we are, our reactions and responses to the changes within the world within.
Hope the man is well. May everyone have the awareness and will to be the goodness that we wish to see in the world. May all be well and happy.
With loving-kindness
Simple Bear 27.01.2016.
"Is he dead?" I thought to myself as I saw a middle aged man lying motionless on the empty flooring in between shops beside the MRT station.
"Just walk away." the inner voice in me was nagging. "Don't look!"
I continued for a few steps and stopped. I remembered, it was just yesterday evening that I wish for the moral courage to do what is right and here I am, trying to walk away from a situation which I can possibly make a change.
The man was lying there, with his back to the exterior wall of a shop. I was standing there in the crowds again, for the second time in two days, looking at the man, lying silently on the ground. There were people buying their dinner and doing their late evening shopping in the shops; there were crowds of people rushing home, passing him by as if his existence was only my visual hallucination.
A little apprehension arose in me. "What if he was dead?" the fear in me asked. There wasn't any visible signs of the man breathing.
"But you can't walk away like this." my 'superego' was shouting at me.
I gathered my nerves and walked slowly towards him. I heaved a sigh of relief when I could see slight motions of him breathing as I came up close. I went to the control station, informed them of the situation and they proceed to call the police to handle the situation. As I was there beside the man, trying to ascertain the situation. Two foreigners stopped and asked if they could be of help. We went away after the station manager came to check the situation and assured us that she will call in the police.
On the way to my next destination, I reflected on my experience. The habitual tendency for us to ignore situations which doesn't involve us had been deeply rooted in us. And to change that normative tendency, two things are essential, awareness of the arising of the tendency and the will to change it. If we are not aware of the tendency arising within, it would become our automated reactions, which is to ignore the situations which may require our help to those in need. Like the experience that I went through earlier, even with the awareness of the arising of the norm, there must be an effort involved to make a deliberated choice, to go against the norm of ignoring, which is deeply rooted in us.
The first step to uniting the responsibility which is diffused, in the conditional milieu in which everyone is in, due to the bystander effect, is to take the first step to break the effect. There are people among us who have the empathy to help but they are hesitant; they prefer not to break 'the norm of ignoring' and to save ourselves from our conscience of ignoring the situation, we comfort ourselves by rationalizing that someone else will help the person in need, there is no need for us to do it. We create the bystander effect when all of us thinks the same. Together with those among us who are apathetic and we create, for ourselves a world which we complained endlessly about the lack of goodness.
'Be the change that you wish to see in the world.' Mahatma Gandhi
Two individuals among the waves of people who walked past before me and after me stopped and decided to take on the humanistic responsibility of helping another, when they saw me walking close to the man to assess the situation. Every single one of us have the power to break the bystander effect, and be the change that we wish to see in the world. Once one of us starts 'breaking the norm of ignoring', the empathetic ones among us will support each other.
We can change the world, one thought at a time, one act at a time, one person at a time. And we start from ourselves; the world is a reflection of who we are, our reactions and responses to the changes within the world within.
Hope the man is well. May everyone have the awareness and will to be the goodness that we wish to see in the world. May all be well and happy.
With loving-kindness
Simple Bear 27.01.2016.
