There have been certain times in my life, as I’m sure there have been in yours, when I was faced with an opportunity to speak up or speak out about something and I opted to stay silent. Some of these situations were injustices that merited my voice, my opinion, and I allowed fear to rule my judgment calls. I was more worried about being disliked, shunned or shamed than I was outraged. I put my own insecurities in front of doing or saying the right thing.

Even worse, in some ways, I’ve remained still during the times when I was the individual at the receiving end of a wrong doing.  I was more concerned with rocking the boat than standing up for myself. For a long time, I don’t think I even realized I was doing this. I got so used to sacrificing my own voice to avoid rocking the boat that I lost any confidence in having a valuable opinion.  Now every time I consider becoming empowered and speaking my mind, I actively talk myself out of doing so. “I’m one person,” I say. ” No one could possibly care what I have to say anyway. It’s better just to keep my mouth shut.”

The more aware I become of the world around me, the more I see others standing still when they should be doing something, anything. Yet, how can I say anything about that when I am one of the many that lets fear rule my world?

Just the other day, I was stuck at a red light during rush hour traffic. I looked over to my right and through my window I saw a car beside me with what appeared to be two women. The car they were driving had tinted windows and they wouldn’t roll the window down, but they were motioning for me to look at the car in front of them and to take some sort of action. When I finally figured out what was going on, I noticed the car directly in front of them had its gas tank open, gas cap flying and all. I guess they wanted me to go do something about it.

In that moment, at least 5 different things went through my mind:

1. I need to go tell the driver what’s going on.

2. I need to just get out of my car and go close it myself.

3. When the light turns green, I’ll have my window down and I’ll say something.

4. I just need to get out of the car and do it myself, even if I end up holding up traffic.

5. Why was this put on me? They saw the gas tank open, yet opted to put it on someone else vs. taking action themselves.

I fought with myself internally for too long and missed the opportunity to just get out of my car and fix the situation. I did try to alert the driver, but traffic didn’t permit that to happen. And I felt such a mix of emotion about what had just happened. What if this had been an accident where someone was really hurt? Would others, would I, have just stood still instead of helping another person in need of assistance?

I honestly don’t know.  It’s not about being a hero. It’s about looking outside ourselves and helping each other out – be it during a time of despair or just when we need a hand. It would have taken very little for me to do something and yet I chose nothing instead.

Perhaps it’s time I rethink all that.

Have you ever been faced with a situation where you had the chance to do and you picked don’t instead?