Confront me not...

The other night an Aussie current affairs show did a segment on a drunken woman driving with her kids. Now the woman in question was an actress pretending to be drunk and about to drive her kids home from shopping or wherever. The show wanted to see if any passerbys would intervene and stop her from driving away with her kids. She was lurching everywhere and doing a really good act of being completely legless (drunk). Did many people stop and confront the woman? Not many and some only after someone else had. Apparently, psychological surveys show most people do not want to get involved because they hate confrontation - but will join in if someone does the confronting first. What this means if no one says anything most people would do stuff all to correct a situation that they know is wrong.

Why is that? Are we scared to meet a fight or stand up for our rights? Is it just easier to back away, pissed off and angry, thinking ‘oh, what I could have said.’ Why don’t we just say it? If we are that affronted or concerned then why don’t we stand up for ourselves and others? Why do we wait to see what other people do? Now, I don’t include myself in this. Why? Because it’s genetically impossible for any of my kin to accept crap or allow others to. Sure, you’re right, sometimes it’s pointless to take someone on who has more power than you. And yeah, sometimes you don’t win…but it’s the trying that counts. It’s the belief that you are as good as anyone else that matters – and all of you are. It’s the inbred knowledge that you cannot let someone be treated badly when you could have said something to stop it.

A woman at work was bitching about another in the ladies loos (ladies toilets). It’s an excellent place for gossip, info and bitchery. I said to her ‘put up or shut up.’ Her response ‘Oh no, I hate confrontation.’ Well, there’s your answer. If you do nothing to change a situation or your lot in life because you’re worried about what someone else thinks then whose fault is it?

“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins. Not through strength, but through persistence.”

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