The Danger in Doing Nothing

What Silence Teaches People to Call Normal

The option of doing nothing is tantalizing. Partly because it is, in fact, an option. A choice. To avoid action is to avoid conflict. To refuse confrontation is refusing the unknown. To turn away from intervention is turning to predictability.

Comfort, mislabeled as safety.

When the pain is consuming, when evil walks straight over the welcome mat without warning, the cut from someone doing nothing goes much deeper. The wound doesn’t stay on the surface. Betrayal does not contain itself there. It festers. This much I know.

This, I remember.

The haunting helplessness is crippling. It keeps you up at night.

The questions of what could have been, had things been different. The anger with yourself for not avoiding it. The guilt for the rage towards those who didn’t know. The realization of the ones or things that caused the disarray. The shock at the ones who did nothing to help.

Overwhelming is the mental whiplash of rationalizing the actions of others. Or the lack thereof. An endless cycle of empathy and disgust. So many times I have returned to that spiral in my mind. Making attempts to understand things I was never meant to.

An exhausting factor of inaction is the explanation from those who did not intervene. It is one thing to try to interpret the motivation people have to stand idly by. It is another to have to listen to their rationale, or indifference.

The words used to argue reason for blatant neutrality press down on my shoulders like a burden I never wanted to carry. A weight I didn’t volunteer to bear. Neutrality, in times of peril, is confused for something else.

For kindness.

For privacy.

For discretion.

For peace.

As time has passed, my mindset has expanded. No longer am I simply appalled at the events I witnessed, the ones that I lived.

No, now my perspective applies to those moments that others have or are still living.

I take in the turmoil, and I feel it in my bones. The hate and the heartache sit on my soul, and are nearly impossible to push away. So often I find myself wanting to reach out and just offer a hand to hold. Among the immensity of this life, such a minuscule sacrifice would likely go unnoticed. Yet, I still want others to know they are not alone. That I won’t sit by and watch them burn.

There have been people walk past their pain and those people did not even look back. I know what it was like to be in those shoes.

I know their agony of burning alive and no one can see the flames. No one pauses long enough to feel the heat of the blaze.

I know their pain. I see them. I hear them. I know them.

Experiencing the lack of interference by those who have deemed themselves bystanders is a memory that lives on. It ruminates, and it causes pure depletion. Knowing what it feels like to be passed over in a time of need makes others’ pain impossible to miss. The familiarity of needing an outspoken safe haven that never came creates a burning need to be one for someone else.

It is seeing someone being torn apart from the inside out. Without the means to get to them. This is when an account of violence circulates and every fiber of me wants to go be the voice of reassurance. Times when I can hear the pain dripping from someone’s voice telling their story, and I cannot find the words they need to hear.

Having worn this name tag reading “Empath” for so long is a beautiful curse.

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This curse lives in Thursday afternoons, Saturday mornings. Moments when I have a chance to decompress, and I will scroll through the different apps on my cell phone. Other times are when I flip on the evening news.

The times when this vital piece of my character is frayed at its roots. It tears away small pieces of me when I cannot be the change for someone I wished so hard to see for myself. The scars left behind on my heart are nearly unbearable.

I read about a small child neglected. I hear about a case of abuse, of any kind. I see an article reporting a hate crime. I witness unnecessary disdain toward another human being. I watch a clip of violence that shakes me to my core.

All my heart and soul want is to run to these people. To do something other than bear witness from afar. I want to take their pain from them, to say that it will be okay, even when I know I cannot promise that.

And I can’t.

That is where the weight settles.

The danger of doing nothing costs me what I cannot afford to give. It drowns me in hypocrisy. It wears on my psyche, and makes me start to question who I really am.

I am someone that is different than the ones who keep walking. Right?

I am the person someone wants nearby when they are found in a treacherous situation. Aren’t I?

The constant reminders of all the people I am unable to assist are suffocating. The fire that is me lacks the oxygen it needs when I see helplessness repeated over and over again. I feel the pull to intervene. I carry guilt for the distance between where I stand and where I once was. A place so closely aligned with where so many still are.

These are feelings that are, and will remain, a part of my daily routine. I am reaching a point in my life where I am coming to terms with a harsh truth.

I will stand up for what I believe in. I will voice my convictions when something feels wrong. I will help someone in need when I am given the chance.

And I won’t change the world.

I will not ignite the movement that saves everyone who needs protecting. I am one person. The only thing I can control is my own actions and my own choices. I can stay true to myself.

That is what I am responsible for.

I will not turn the other cheek in the name of comfort. As overwhelming as this need may become, I will not numb myself to remain silent. I will not pretend that neutrality is harmless, or that looking away costs nothing.

I don’t always know the right words. I don’t always know the right action. But I do know what it feels like to be left standing alone, and I refuse to become someone who keeps walking.

That is the line I hold.

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