Imagine yourself walking on the footpath, like a good responsible law abiding citizen, and suddenly a car comes and hits you out of nowhere. For next couple of months, you’re in the hospital, recuperating; and in the mean time also loosing that precious thing called time. MBAs will call it your lost opportunity cost; a more seasoned MBA will call it the cost of disease or accident. Anyhow, while you’re recuperating there in the hospital (or in your home), what do you think of the people who were driving that fateful car?
Let’s start with the simplest of scenarios and add on to complications as we progress.
In the most basic of cases, the car hits you and runs away. You never got to know the drivers, all you knew was that it “might” have been an honest mistake on their part, and you were just utterly hapless to be there – at the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, what if it wasn’t an “honest” mistake, rather, it was just a mistake, and the people who were driving were drunk and were having fun? Although, the accident which happened was unintentional, yet it could have been avoided had they been a little more responsible. Would you not curse them and feel that this should not go unpunished and that their karma should catch up to them?
Please note, that in any of these cases, the people sitting in the car were absolutely unharmed. Even their car had no superficial scratches whatsoever.
Now let’s say that the people sitting in the car did what they did intentionally. Being drunk or sober doesn’t really matter in this case. Although, as in the previous case, here too, the people sitting in the car are complete strangers to you. How would you feel about them now?
Finally, consider the case where the people sitting in the car did it knowing fully aware of what they were doing and why they were doing along with the fact that they were not complete strangers to you. These people knew you. Not just “knew you” knew you but they have known you for last 5-7 years, hanging out with you on a daily basis, getting involved in marathon carousing sessions with you, asking for your help as and when they required it; and you, being such a morally upright ass that you have been throughout your life, did whatever you could for them. In fact, when such an accident happened a couple of years ago to one of the people sitting in the car, you distinctly remember him saying that he wouldn’t hit anyone like this. And even earlier than that, you have been there for another such person who was also in that same car in a similar kind of situation. They were certainly more than friends with you. Or, you thought so.
The person who was driving the car was your girlfriend of four years and seven months. The person sitting next to her was your closest friend.
Oh, and instead of breaking your bones (which would have been far simpler to deal with), they broke your heart. Just like that, right there. Never visiting you in the hospital, because apparently…
Cellar Door 