Yesterday, as I went to get into my car, I noticed something moving in the parking lot. When I looked closer, it was a little bird that was fluttering across the ground, then it would stop to breathe (panting heavily), then continue. I watched as it reached the curb, but it wasn't able to flutter enough to get onto the sidewalk, so it continued to slowly flutter down the curb.
I thought about getting gloves and picking up the bird, but I had no idea where to put it. I could tell that the bird wasn't going to live much longer and my heart went out to it. I recognized that the bird needed a mercy killing, but I didn't have it in me.
I left and when I came back, the bird was in the corner of the curb, unable to make further progress, waiting to die. I wish I could say that I thought of something noble to do, that I figured out some way to comfort the bird, or relieve it's suffering, but I can't because I didn't. I left that night, with the small thing, alone and dying in a cold parking lot.
When I got back this morning, the bird had died in the night. I'm sure it suffered to it's last breath and I feel like such an awful person because I wasn't able to end its suffering, but I guess I just don't have what it takes to switch my compassion over to action and it makes me wonder if I would be one of those people would would let a person get beaten to death in the street (or something similar) because I was too afraid to do anything.
Take this story for example:
166 People Walked By
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