Guy's Behavior

The Will To Do What Others Won't

"Having the willpower to do what other people won't do."



Take a second to let that phrase sink in...Give it a second...

Has it sunk in yet?

Heard it before, have you?

It's one of those phrases that I've always remembered since hearing it - over the course of some time ago, ever since seeing the movie 'The Usual Suspects' for the first time back in the mid-nineties. But I've often found myself saying this in my head, during so many situations - dealing with work, school, family, friends - you name it. And I know a lot of you reading this out there are saying the same thing (even though the movie used it in a little different sense).
"I know a lot of you reading this out there are saying the same thing."

But seriously, isn't it one of the most powerful phrases you've ever heard? Especially, when taken into consideration how many situations you can apply this phrase to.

Funny story - I started writing this story about 2 weeks ago, and I came this far and took a break on it to look for inspiration to see where to take this. Now today at work, I found myself applying this phrase to a situation that happened:

A lady had just left my (electronics) store and had gotten into her car out in the parking lot and started it up. You could hear the car wasn't in the best sounding condition. I could see the lady in her car, going through what looks likes certain motions of shifting gears, while looking through the window of my store from standing at my computer/ register. And I could see that her car was having trouble and something wasn't right.

In the midst of this is dealing with a busy store of people who are being helped by associates (including myself) and waiting to be helped, and browsing around. And in the store we all can hear her revving her engine to extremes, like her foot had the driver's pedal buried to the floor of the car. But she wasn't going anywhere, something about her car was broken. And I could see her engine start to smoke from underneath the hood, and fluid started spilling underneath her car. And soon a spark fell from underneath the engine and a small fire started from the fluid that spilled.

It was at that point that I started to rush out of the store, and only the customer that I was helping had followed (even though everyone could plainly hear the lady and her car trouble). We reached the car, started banging on the windows, and yelling "Get out of the car! Get out of the freakin' car!" while opening the door and pulling her out.

We (the customer and I) managed to roll the car back a few feet from where it was stranded, smoking and starting to set fire. It was then two employees from the restaurant, next door to my store, had come with a fire extinguisher and, thankfully, put out the fire that had started. I'd call this one - four minutes of mystery (watching her start her car) with a minute of excitement (getting her out). Is what it felt like to me.



Luckily, everyone was safe, the lady, and the customer and myself who helped her get away from the detrimental situation. And the customer was a young guy just like myself. The funny thing is here - I was in a situation where I felt like "okay, I have to do something about this right now or this lady's going to get hurt." And the customer who helped me help her, had the same mentality as myself - out of the whole plaza full of people, inside and outside of surrounding stores.

Now this is what seemed like even more of a coincidence - the customer that I was helping at the time had come into my store a day before, right before closing. I had helped him as best I could before we closed and he said he wanted to come back the next day after he did some research at home, and make a purchase the following day. And I had told him to come in to see me around the this time (it was around 5 p.m.) that the situation with this lady had so coincidentally happened. It just seems funny to me. Like, coincidence funny.

But the fact of the matter to this story has to do with rising to the occasion when you feel called upon. And sometimes that comes with having to have the awareness and willpower that others around you may not have, or possess, or even realize the fact of the matter of a situation that could use the help of someone who is standing nearby to rise to the occasion, in their surroundings. And seriously, who knows when this kind of situation is to present itself to us. But when it happens to me, I always feel like I have to trust my instincts, and my awareness.
"Some emergencies may seem ambiguous and hard to determine the necessity and amount of help in need of giving to the individual."

And sometimes when we're in a group setting we may interpret these situations differently. We never know under certain circumstances how we are to perceive situations, because I mean, some emergencies may seem ambiguous and hard to determine the necessity and amount of help in need of giving to the individual that the "so called emergency" surrounds.

  • We may want to help but not want to fail in front of a bunch of other people.
  • We may feel like we may not have the capabilities to do something about the emergency.
  • We could be laughing one second, and saying "oh sh*it" the next, and freeze up.
  • We may feel like "someone has to do something, but it isn't going to be me."
  • And sometimes, because the cries for help are not directed at us, we feel like we are not responsible for helping.

And that's when we have to carry with us - *the will power to do what other people around us will not do* - and that is to make a difference.
The Will To Do What Others Won't
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