Did I Do the Right Thing?

This is a question that I ask myself all of the time. I constantly worry if I did the right thing in various situations, and I always try to do the socially responsible thing when it comes to most of my actions. I value fairness, ethics, and morals, but I also see the gray area when it comes to a lot of things. It’s important to me to be a good person and to do things that benefit society. This is probably one of the driving factors of why I’ve decided to become a teacher, and it constantly guides my decisions.

But I do find myself in situations where I’m just not sure if I did the right thing or not, and it’s hard to know when to do the right thing, especially if it means putting yourself in danger. I also think it’s sad when other people don’t hold themselves to the same standards – when they blatanly just don’t give a shit about others and just do what they want without thought about hurting someone else. Here’s a recent situation that happened that just made me really sad: I was grabbing some lunch at Jack In the Box after my internship (I have to go to my paying job afterwards so I try to grab lunch and there happens to be a Jack in the Box close to the school). I was sitting at a table eating when a guy walked in with a cup and went over to the soda fountain to fill it up. I noticed that the cup was a Big Grab cup (like you get at whatever gas station it is). I was curious to see if he was going to pay for it, I thought maybe, just maybe he was trying to be “green” and just reuse a cup he already had. Nope. He filled up the cup and quickly ran out before the employee at the counter had a chance to do anything. I was the only person in the store, and the employee had been watching him too – he said something to the soda thief, but the guy just ignored him and hurried out. The employee went after him, but he got in a car and drove off, over to a gas station nearby! The employee walked over there, but he didn’t catch the guy. It was just so rude… if you are really thirsty, just ask, some places will just let you do an IOU or will be more understanding. I felt so bad for the Jack in the Box employee. As I was leaving the restaurant, I saw the thief drive by again in his car (he had picked up a friend who was hanging out in the parking lot), and he pulled out into the street, going the same direction as me. I tried to get up behind him and get his license plate number, with the thought that I would call the Jack In The Box and provide them with the info, but I couldn’t get up behind him because he was speeding (of course) and it wasn’t worth getting into an accident over. But at least I tried.

Did I do the right thing here? I think I did. I wish I could have been more helpful, but sometimes the risk isn’t worth it. I could have tried to chase him and get his information, but I just don’t think getting in an accident over it would have been a good thing. And I figure, people like that, with such blatant disregard for others, it will catch up to them. The next time he tries to steal something, even something small like soda, it might not go so easily. I just don’t understand how someone can give so little respect to other people. I know it was just soda, but the idea behind what he did is just do disheartening. And unfortunately, I think there are a lot of people out there that do things like this all the time, and a lot worse things. If people could just see how their actions affected others, this world would be such a better place. If that guy had taken 5 seconds to think about the effects of his actions, he would have seen how stealing even that 50 cents of soda caused repercussions for the people that work there. But a lot of people don’t think that way. It’s so disheartening.

Flexible or Faking It

I'd like to think that I'm a fairly flexible person. I am open-minded and open to trying different options and different ways of thinking about a problem. I think I'm especially flexible when it's something that I have never done before, or that I don't know as much about – I would prefer to defer to the experts, if you will, and take the advice of someone who has experience with the matter. For example, in my internship with my mentor teacher, I have been tasked with teaching a grammar unit to his Freshman English Essentials students (as I have mentioned before). He has left this pretty open for me to teach the unit as I choose but since this is all so new to me (planning and implementing a unit), I am very open to his suggestions for the unit, and flexible in how I plan and actually teach the unit. Last week, I went in, all set to go over this review worksheet that I had given them (sort of an open book test). I was going to have them just work on it with partners and we would discuss the more difficult questions as a class. But when I got in there, I could tell they would need something more interactive – so instead I split them into partners, assigned them each 2 sentences to work on together, and report back to the class about it. This ended up working out so much better, as we were able to discuss all of it as a class, I was able to see where everyone was at in their understanding, and it was just generally a more enjoyable lesson for everyone. This really showed me that sometimes I need to just be flexible with my plans for a lesson and see how the students are interacting that day, and sometimes just adjust my plans to fit that better.

However, when it comes to something I am fairly comfortable with, and have found my set way of doing, I can be less flexible. I'll change my ways, but with a bit of kicking and screaming along the way. This is evidenced at my day job – a Client Services Representative for Universal Background Screening. I have worked at this company for two and a half years, and in that time have found my specific way of handling issues that I come across on a daily basis – issues I have now become comfortable with since I've been doing it for so long. So when I'm asked to handle something differently, or give away a task that I normally do, it is somewhat difficult for me to be as flexible as I should be. I do it, but not happily. Thankfully, I'm pretty good at faking it, and most of the time, I am able to get used to the new way quickly and find the benefits of doing the task this other way. I just need to force myself to feel that way the first time I am asked to try a different way.

Battle to the Death: Self Awareness Vs. Empathy!!

I’m so self-aware that it hurts. I’m constantly analyzing why I’m feeling the way I feel, and I generally know the source of the emotion I’m feeling. I’m not sure that I always deal with the emotion in the healthiest of ways (I’m an emotional eater and shopper!) It’s like, I know what I’m feeling, but I don’t always know how to fix the thing that is causing me to feel that way. And I don’t internalize when I’m upset – I talk about it, to anyone and everyone. It’s usually the way I deal with an issue or an emotional conflict. This sometimes leads to unwanted advice that I don’t always want to take, but then I get all confused and don’t always trust myself to fix the problem myself. So I might be self-aware, but I need to build my confidence in myself to find the proper ways to deal with the emotions I am feeling.

And this comes into direct conflict with the fact that I am a very empathetic person. I’m so worried about what other people are thinking and feeling (although I’m not always very good at reading this in others), that I will often compromise my own emotions and feelings to help others feel better. I put myself in their shoes and can understand how they are feeling, even if I might not agree. It can be very emotionally draining and even physically exhausting, at times. I think my empathy is one of my best qualities, and I’ve had friends that have told me as such, but I worry that I sometimes exhibit empathy at the cost of my own feelings.