Fight or Flight: A Very Important and Personal Post.
“Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” — Aristotle
Earlier this morning on my way to work I ran into a man that was pummeling a poor defenseless woman in the parking lot of a Rite-Aid near my apartment. Noticing that this girl was in trouble I decided to intervene and I managed to floor her assailant and hold him long enough until authorities arrived.
I really don’t know what came over me because I’m usually not one to just jump into action like that. I know in my mind that I did the right thing and have had this incident on my mind the whole day.
I came to the conclusion of the following: That I have no remorse or regret of what I did. I seen someone that was in a dangerous situation and I in turn saved somebody’s life. I know I don’t live in the most safest of neighborhoods, but the though of anybody retaliating back at me is far from my mind. As deadly as these streets may be, what I did needed to be done. I can only imagine how I would feel if I would have just ignored it and if when coming back from work the situation turned into a crime scene or murder investigation. I know in my heart that I would live with it for the rest of my life and that is something that I do not want following me around.
It’s hard to comprehend the fact that I saved someone today. I don’t feel any different that I normally do and while most people that I’ve told about this say I did the right thing, there are still some that think that I should have handled the situation in a different way. That maybe I should have let the cops deal with it, or that I even should have ignored it given the location, but the fact of the matter is this. If I was in the situation of the victim, I would be praying that someone would help me and at the time. Despite whatever type of person the victim was, seeing a defenseless woman being bloodied up by someone with such rage and fury that I thought he was going to kill her just ignited me and propelled me to stop it before it was too late. I can only hope that the majority of people would feel the same.
In the end and though injured, this unknown woman has the opportunity to live another day assured that her assailant is at least gone for the time being. Should they cross paths in the future is beyond my knowledge but I hope and pray that they never do.
I’ll leave you with another quotation and a question.
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I chose fight over flight. My question is what would you do?
