I was outside meditating on my balcony one morning and heard a meow.

I kept hearing it and eventually noticed a cat up a tree across the street. I had only a few minutes before work but decided to give it a go…

So I’m like 20 feet up this tree and my neighbor walks out. We sort of make awkward eye contact for a second and I’m like “hey - is this your cat?”.

He then sees the cat, which makes this all make much more sense to him. And he thanks me and says I didn’t have to do this. But I go after it and just as I am about to reach the cat she climbs like 10 feet higher out on a branch. There’s no way I can get to her.

I climb down a bit defeated — but ended up talking to this neighbor and getting to know him. Then another neighbor comes out and I got to know her too. And as I walk inside I feel pretty darn good. I’m like that was kinda fun and I have a great story.

The lesson here is to give yourself permission to stop and help. And when you feel like you have time to spare you are more caring and helpful. There is research to support this.

The “Good Samaritan Study” sent seminary students across campus to complete a task on their route researchers had someone staged there to be slumped over and coughing potentially in need of help. To some students they would say something like “hey go over to this other lab you’re already late” or “hey you have a few minutes” or “you have plenty of time”. And they looked at how likely each group was to stop and help. In low hurry situations 63% helped, medium hurry 45% helped, and high hurry 10% helped.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this is the task some of the seminary students were given was to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan. So even when primed to be thinking about being a “good samaritan”, they wouldn’t stop if they were in a hurry. Some literally stepped over the victim on their way to the next building! The results seem to show that thinking about norms does not imply that one will act on them. Rather the speed of our lives tends to influence how ethical and caring we are.

Reference — Darley & Batson Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1973, Vol. 27, No. J, 100-108

Keywords & Nodes

• society
• altruism
• ethics
• 8. The World Out There
• External factors prime us to feel and behave certain ways.
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• Buying time improves happiness.
• This relates to cultural conditioning around productivity and increased financials pressures which imply that Our socioeconomic system is not sustainable which may impact happiness.
• This is an example of how our state influences Perceptions are not reality. The mind brings forth a world. and decision making.