I am 15 or 16 years old, walking through the street in New York City. It is a crowded street, and a tourist is walking maybe 10-15 feet in front of me. He is staring up at the tall buildings, slowly walking, carrying many shopping bags from all the fancy stores. I see four men hand signaling, and it seems obvious they are about to target the tourist. What to do? I want to help the tourist, but not sure how. I don’t want these guys angry at me. I end up speeding up, and as I pass the tourist, I say, “Watch where you are Bleeping going!” I pass him, and about ten seconds later, I hear a crash–the tourist is on the ground without his shopping bags. Everyone keeps walking. Welcome to New York.
This is one of those scenarios where better options seem obvious after the fact. People frequently talk about thinking of just the right comeback much later. I could have done much smarter things–strike up a conversation with the tourist, fall in front of him and fake a seizure, or bump into him and start an argument. In the heat of the moment, when you have limited experience, it is hard to know what to do.
Likely, I’ll never experience that situation again. Is there anything to learn from a freak occurrence like that? Yes, even though the same experience is not likely to happen exactly the same way, life repeats a lot more than we realize.
I do experience similar situations all the time. OK, not as dramatically, but frequently, when working with individuals with severe behavior problems, it is easy to see that a problem behavior will likely occur soon. Maybe the child is playing with a toy and can’t get it to work correctly, or the parents run out of the child’s favorite snacks, or a favorite person is leaving the room. There is no problem behavior yet, but pretty much everyone sees it is about to happen.
Often, we think we must respond immediately–Do Something! But our first impulse is often not the best choice. Usually, we have more time than we think. Sure, it is often necessary to respond quickly. But unless there is immediate danger, that doesn’t mean instantly. Taking just a few seconds to think through your options is often enough to make a dramatically better decision. Three seconds is a long time. You might have significantly more time than that. This applies to all kinds of stressful, heat-of-the-moment decisions in life. Even in dramatic situations, you usually don’t have to dodge bullets. You have a few seconds. If you can remain calm enough to think clearly, you might save the tourist.