The fight for sympathy in a growing apathetic society (personal story)

You can be in a situation where you have every right (and power) to condemn someone for their wrongdoing, but you pause. The person could even concede that he/she should have known better and is gracefully willing to take the punishment, whatever it might be, but you pause. Then in the mist of your rage, you introspect to realize, you could have been YOU on the other side of the table, except through varying (often complex) circumstances.

Apathy is often what is being shun down upon in most leadership/christian books, yet in practice it's the very trait that is admired for someone who is decisive and 'getting the job done'. The assumption in believing that Old testament prophets were not apathetic towards the conquered nations is both naive and short-sighted. Not that I have any experience in this, but it's pretty difficult to cut someone's head off, if you're feeling sorry for him (unless you're really twisted upstairs).

Back to my story... As someone who fights to be 'true-to-self', I realized I had a choice to make. Do I exercise my right of being decisive and tell that person where to jump off, irrespective of their excuse for failure OR do I pursue BALANCE in my thoughts and actions in dealing with the root-cause (irrespective on how dragging/time-consuming it might be). I chose the latter. But it wasn't so much a choice than a realization that we are ALL conflicted everyday and there's is no obvious right or wrong when it comes to making decisions.

There's only context, circumstance and the prevailing universal truth that we should never pretend to know THE right answer even when it's staring at you right in the face.

Paulin Kantue

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