I read a story from the newspaper. One time, a man saw a bag placing in the corner of the hospital, but no one was in the nearby. So he grabbed that bag and checked what’s in it. He was so shocked there are at 40,000 dollars inside the bag. Definitely, this amount money is very appealing to ripping off. Moreover, there is nobody notice what happened in this hidden corner. He could just keep the money and leave the hospital. However, he did not. Otherwise, it will not be reported on newspaper. He thought for a while and finally decided to stay there and wait for the owner coming back. At the same time, he also contacted the customer service of the hospital trying to reach the owner with hospital together. After 4 hours waiting, the owner finally comes back. The owner is a single mom from a small village. When she saw the bag with the correct amount of money, she was so surprised and thrilled since she really did not expect the money bag did not steal by others. She told that man this amount of money was borrowed for treat her daughter’s cancer. In order to gather enough money to pay the bill, she had sold the only small house and asked for the relative for the rest. If she lost the money, she has no way to get the enough money for her daughter’s surgery.
Later on, the reporter interviewed with this man and asked him have ever thought just taking the money away? He answered honestly, at the very beginning, this selfish thought really came into his mind, but if he really took the money, what would have happened to the owner? In common sense, nobody would bring this large of money going out. It must have an important reason for the owner to do so. In addition, it is not easy to save this large amount of money. He did not want to regret and feel guilty for his selfish thought, which might cause huge trouble to the owner. Therefore, he decided to be a moral man and reach out the owner.
From this story, I think sometimes people choose to not be an opportunist may due to the moral conscientiousness. They can hardly bear the censure from their conscience for the whole life. In addition, it is not easy to make money for a living. He does not want exploit their hard-earned dollars. Lastly, it is nice to behave an honest person by helping others. In this story, he saved a girl’s life. People would be proud of their moral behaviors or selfless choice. Based on above consideration, I think it is not hard to understand why sometimes people choose not to take advantage of the situation.
This looks like a post about opportunism. That is for next week's prompt. That is okay. Next week please write about the prompt for this week, which is about your experience in organizations.
ReplyDeleteAs to your story, it sounds fantastic to find such a large sum of money and with no identification of the owner. But maybe the location mattered to the story. Do you recall why the man was in the hospital. Perhaps that impacted his state of mind when making this decision.
I'm pretty absent minded, always have been. When I was a graduate student I recall losing my wallet, which had my identification in it, and the person who found it returned it to me. There was not a lot of money in it, as I didn't have a lot of money then. But the information it had was important to me. It was a very decent thing that the person who found it returned it to me. I'd like to think that most people have that sense of decency, but I really don't know.
If I found a small amount of money, without any identifying information, I'd probably keep it. I really don't know what I'd do if I found a large sum. It's an experiment that is impossible to perform.
Actually only those stories which sound impossible would be more likely be reported on our country's newspaper. I think sometimes a large amount of cash may look very appealing at the first sight, people tend to keep the money rather than find out the owner. However, if people take further consideration, they might wonder what this large sum used for. It must have an important reason to bring out such amount of cash with them. In addition, I really think guilty would be the most plausible reason that drive people to behave morally. At least for me, I could never sleep well with so much money that is belong to someone else.
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