Is standing by watching ever right?

I’d like to share a story about a girl I went to school with more than two and a half decades ago. She was, to us teenagers (so worldly wise we were at the ripe old age of around fourteen), considered rather odd. Her name was, let’s say, Anna. Anna was very quiet, always walked with her head down, a very thin and untidy looking young girl. She had no friends that I know of and was never one of a crowd. Rarely did Anna utter a word, speaking barely above a whisper when she did.

I always felt sorry for her. I was never unkind to her or bullied her like some of the others in my school did, but at the same time, I never made a move to befriend her or even find out what kind of person Anna was.

I had lots of friends in school. Though the thought crossed my mind to try and extend the hand of friendship to Anna, I knew that my friends would not accept her, looking the way she did, or worse, not accept me, if I asked her to join in with us. The feeling of shame that I allowed that to happen is remembered just as clearly today.

I let the fear of others judgment of me and my actions override what I knew inside was the right thing to do. Essentially, I still judged Anna by her appearance just as they did. Quietly I allowed my own fears of rejection to smother any compassion I felt.

My teenage self never took the time to see the person underneath it all, to see if Anna was hurting emotionally or needed help in some way…nothing. Maybe Anna would have rejected me anyway but I never gave her the chance. See, my own life was sailing along just nicely, thank you. The thought of my friends rejecting me didn’t make it worth the risk I reasoned, although my heart told me that was just plain wrong.

I saw Anna years later in a different town for the first time since I had left school. She was with one of the most sought after and popular guys from my old school, pushing a pram. They were walking along holding hands, chatting and laughing. Anna looked really pretty and I realized with a jolt that until now, I had never once seen that girl look happy.

I was surprised (and a twinge of jealousy there too) to see her with him, I won’t deny it. Immediately I felt my cheeks flame with shame when I caught myself thinking that. Why should I have been surprised? Because he was such a great catch? Who was I to say that she wasn’t? Was I saying that he was ‘too good for her’?!

I didn’t know anything about Anna as a person or her life. He had obviously taken the time to get to know Anna and love her, when so many others hadn’t. Even if I had known every intimate detail of her life, it still wasn’t my right to do so! After all those years, history repeated itself. I judged Anna once again, based purely on appearances on outdated information dredged up in my mind from decades ago in school.

I made up my mind that I’d revisit and learn from that whole experience and think about what I could have done different or better. Perhaps someone can learn from my mistakes.

Take the time to reach out to someone when the opportunity arises. Don’t judge them by the way they look or how they act, especially not by others standards that do not gel with your own, just to be one of the crowd and not jeopardize your own little comfortable world. Peer group pressure is just that- pressure. Listen to your heart and do the right thing for you. You could enrich each other’s lives and you would miss that because you just passed on by blindly.

I’m glad that Anna found happiness and I hope that she found it in her heart to forgive those of us that stood by and watched her in her loneliness and did nothing, as well as her tormentors. Is it better to stay silent than take your courage in both hands and reach out to someone? Only you can decide what’s right for you personally. Me, these days, I’d rather reach out and take the chance of being rejected than not at all.