A BROTHER'S KEEPER

"The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves." - Plato 

Brother's Keeper

The nice thing about apathy is that you don't have to exert yourself to show you're sincere about it. It comes naturally. Whose responsibility should it be to make it right, or lend a helping hand, everyone, or someone?

When Rosina Hernandez was in college, she attended a rock concert at which one young man was brutally beaten by another. No one made any attempt to stop the beating. The next day she was struck dumb to learn that the youth had died as a result of the pounding. Yet neither she nor anyone else had raised a hand to help him. She could never forget the incident or her responsibility as an inactive bystander. Years later, she saw another catastrophe. A car driving in the rain ahead of her suddenly skidded and plunged into Biscayne Bay. The car landed head down in the water with only the tail end showing. In a moment a woman appeared on the surface, shouting for help and saying her husband was stuck inside. This time Rosina waited for no one. She plunged into the water, tried unsuccessfully to open the car door, then pounded on the
back window as other bystanders stood on the causeway and watched. First she screamed at them, begging for help, then cursed them, telling them there was a man dying in the car. First one man, then another, finally came to help. Together they broke the safety glass and dragged the man out. They were just in time -- a few minutes later it would have been all over.

Had Rosina waited, that man would've died. She might not have physically saved him, but her effort did. She'd promised she'd never again fail to do anything she could: and she'd made good on her promise. We need to decide to do right, even when everyone else isn't. Be the first. Be the change. Make the difference. You never know what your little effort will do.