The Cost of Inaction

Sometimes in life we can find ourselves stuck between two choices – to act or not to act – both of which have very different, yet very real and important consequences. If we choose one, we cannot choose the other.

By taking action, we have the potential to set off a cascade of events that slots us into one camp, to firmly affix upon ourselves a label that may be difficult to shrug off, potentially forever.

A choice that will follow us, become the very fibre of our being, that becomes us. A new identity. Not chosen, but given.

By choosing to enact the other option, which by it’s very nature is grounded in inaction, in omission, we avoid the association and stigma, but lose our most valuable and finite possession – time. We will never get that back. Ever. It would be lost. Gone. Conceded to the ether. And as we age, we can certainly understand the inherent value of said time, which keeps on ticking. Ticking. Ticking.

What would you choose?

On one such occasion, back on Dec 27th, 2016, my dear readers, I chose inaction. I made that conscious decision. I sacrificed my invaluable time. And I have yet to regain it.

I still remember the events of that day clearly, as though it were yesterday and not 553 days ago. While today I am in the midst of a heat wave, then I was in the midst of a deep freeze.

This is how it all went down:

I chose not honk at the guy in front of me, who had stopped in the middle of the intersection for no reason, in the middle of executing a left turn, safely protected by an advanced green. Who didn’t care for his time. Or mine.

I didn’t deliver that blast of sound, cathartic in its wave of compression and rarefaction, piercing, time-saving.

Because doing so would have acknowledged the PETA protestors bordering the intersection, who were holding up signs asking us to honk if we support their cause.

Instead, my hand lay dormant and my horn lay silent.

I missed my turn.

Kept my identity.

And lost my time.