“Don’t just stand there! Do something!”
In a world where action is rewarded, we are convinced that being the bystander is never an option. Being the bystander has taken on a negative connotation.
There is an idea dubbed as the “Bystander Effect,” a social phenomenon in which individuals don’t offer help to a victim, but instead, stand back and watch the situation play out. However, maybe inaction is just as effective, and even sometimes preferable, to action.
In 1945, President Harry Truman made the executive decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. American lives were rapidly being lost, and Truman felt he needed to act quickly before the number of casualties grew any larger.
However, according to a report by The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group in 1946, Japan would have surrendered even if atomic bombs had not been dropped and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
In this case, the choice of inaction and doing nothing would’ve saved thousands of innocent lives from being lost.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in their article, “Why the best doctors often do nothing” that doctors worry that if they don’t do something, their patient will be dissatisfied. Patients expect doctors to be able to fix any problem with a medication prescription or a surgery.
However, sometimes medication can make the condition even worse and surgery is a risky and financially taxing procedure that should only be reserved for necessary cases.
One of the hardest things for any doctor to do is to do nothing. As physicians, part of their job is doing everything in their power to save a patient. However, there comes a point in time where there is nothing more that can be done.
That is not a point at which a black hole has been opened. That is the ability to make mature, well thought out decision.
But our obsession with action just doesn’t affect larger, dramatic issues. It can also apply to everyday situations.
In an argument with a friend or family member, it’s not always necessary to get in the last word.
When we were children on the playground and the kindergarten bully made fun of us on the monkey bars, our parents would tell us to walk away.
And they were right.
Choosing to walk away and not retaliate is hard.
But we don’t always have to get even. Choosing to do nothing isn’t admitting defeat or weakness. It’s preventing an unnecessary conflict from arising.
Taking action is often seen as equivalent to heroism, and we feel people who just stand still are rarely ever rewarded. We glorify heroic responses with radiant, attention-grabbing and awe-inspiring headlines, but for many there comes a time and a situation where there’s nothing we can do. Yet we refuse to accept that because we don’t recognize sane boundaries of what we can and can’t do.
We view it as a limitation.
Doing nothing isn’t a default option. It isn’t a “there is nothing left to do” option. It’s a choice in itself. We can view it as an action, not the absence of an action. It’s in doing nothing that we can accomplish a lot.
Of course there is a time when action is required. But only when it’s time.
Nobody wants to come away from a situation and say, “I didn’t do anything to help stop it.” But how many more bystanders have to jump in and try to help, only to make the problem worse?
