do the right thing

Kill The Hero

This is one of those rare times I attempt to shock you into reading a post via an interestingly vague title. But, I am serious: Kill the hero.

The concept of hero has many meanings. The one I want to focus on is this:

Man stops thief from taking purse from old, defenseless lady. He’s now a hero. The man replies “I’m no hero; I just did what I thought was right”.

Right there. We live in a world that doesn’t expect you to do the right thing. When you do, you get a parade. We need to end this. We need to be in a place where everybody is doing their part to stop bad to the point it’s virtually taken for granted.

Some say that a hero is indeed not a hero. In a split second, true character shows. What will you do when you find a wallet with $1,000? What want to do and what you end up doing are different things, although the first thing can often influence the second thing.

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Mark Twain: Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

I wanted to talk about this quote a little more. I mentioned it in my Daily Good News 11. I wanted to expand my thoughts.

It’s always important to do the right thing. And yet, it seems like a struggle. Why?

One could say, the “Good Samaritan rule”. For what I hear, at least for this country of the USA, the law means that you can help someone; mainly in a life threatening situation, and not be held accountable for any damage. For instance, if someone is choking, you go over to perform the Heimlich maneuver. But, let’s say you break a rib while saving the person’s life. Now, he goes around and sues you for the medical bill. The nerve! And so, you don’t go around trying to help because then it could come back to haunt you. That law protects the would be heroes. So, in countries that don’t follow that, maybe that’s why doing the right thing could be bad.

Some people would only do the right thing if there’s a reward for it. “Can you help me?” “Help? What’s in it for me?” Something like that. That’s a shame.

And, you have some that may not be capable or at least don’t think they could help. I kinda give those folks a free pass especially since you trying to help could make things worse if you’re stumbling around like a drunk or something.

Some people simply don’t care. Some have their own agendas and doing the right thing will only set them back.

Others don’t do the right thing if it means they look silly. Perhaps people at the job take some items/merchandise. And they tell you it’s all good. And you’re like, “Nah, it’s not right” and then they call you goody two shoes or something. Sort of peer pressure type thing. It takes some balls to stand up to that.

I’m sure there are other scenarios too. But yeah, people don’t do the right thing.

That’s what makes this quote so believable. So unfortunate. Consider the “astonish the rest” part. Because we live in a world that doesn’t always do the right thing, when someone does it, it’s like “Holy mother of my sister!” (What!?) and people make you a hero or something. I hate it.

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