The Price of Inaction
Last week I was driving my kids to school and noticed a chunk of ice near the lane where I was driving, as I got closer I realized that it wasn’t ice, it was a white bunny. It was covered with dirt and was unable to hop over the small wall of ice that the snowplow had left on the side of the road. So it was trapped between a wall of ice and four lanes of morning traffic.
I was running late and kept going but thought that someone behind me would stop or maybe I could go back after dropping off the kids and put it over the snowbank. After I dropped the kids off at school, I checked my phone and saw a message about an event that the foundation was hosting later that day, that needed some attention. I quickly went to work, forgeting that I had planned to go back.
The next day as we were driving to school, I noticed a fuzzy body by the side of the road and realized that the bunny had been hit by a car. I got that sick feeling in my stomach (that I get when I realize I screwed up). I could have done something and I didn’t because it would be a slight inconvenience.
There are real consequences when we decide not to act. Schools close, people die because they don’t have health insurance, neighborhoods get stuck with a toxic waste dump, and little bunnies get hit by cars. We can’t do everything, especially for those of us who have chosen to work in the nonprofit sector and can see so many places that need our help. But I wish that morning, I had taken the extra two minutes and made the difference for that bunny because you don’t always get a second chance.
March 7th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I don’t know anyone who couldn’t relate to this post – how many times we just rush about our daily lives and pass by those people (or bunnies) that need us.
In the awesome book, Survivors Club, a young man was interviewed that jumped off the Golden Gate bridge and miraculously survived. He remembered waiting on top of the bridge for a long while, just waiting for someone to notice him and commented that if someone had made even a basic inquiry, he wouldn’t have jumped. The only woman who spoke to him was a tourist. She stopped and asked him to take her picture.
This story and its lesson is relevant to organizations as well. Sometimes we think we may not have the time or resources to address those challenges presented to us on a daily basis. But maybe, just maybe, if we stopped long enough to think about lending our resources, we’d find a way.
Thanks for sharing your story.