Don't stand by and let it burn

 

So the other day, I was sitting on my back porch. Doing nothing, trying to relax since I’ve been rather stressed out with the whole ‘I’m launching a new book’ problem. When I hear my neighbor start screaming, “Fire, fire!” Oh, boy. For those of you who’ve read my previous post about my neighbors, this is the one who’s been doing all the home repairs himself. And doing them wrong. Thus, my gut instinct was he’s done something horribly wrong and his house was burning to the ground. However, when I jump up, spin around and look over to his yard – what do I see? Nope, not smoke pouring out of his roof. Rather his BBQ grill, standing alone in the middle of the yard, flames coming out of it on all sides. About then, his wife runs out of the house, waving a towel in one hand and holding a box of something in the other. “Smother it out with baking soda!” She yells as she tries passing him the items. He rushes to grab the hose from the side of the house, “No, water!” He screams back at her. So now the two of them are standing in the yard, arguing back and forth about how to put out the fire. And who’s the bigger idiot is. Him for never cleaning the grill or her for putting bacon on the corn. And ignoring the actual inferno beside them. Finally, one of my other neighbors, wearing giant oven mitts on each hand marches into the yard. First he fiddles with the propane tank, then the knobs on the grill. Next he rips the drip pan out, still flaming mind you, and flings it across the yard. Then yanks open the lid and throws the smoldering, charcoaled remains of the dinner around the yard as well. When his work was done, he strode back across the lawn, patting out the embers on his mitts as he went on his merry way back to his house. Leaving my neighbors staring, mouths agape at the wreckage of their meal, grass and the retreating back of our neighbor. As I sat back down, I began to chuckle. As I thought about it, I began to realize, so often we do this in life. Instead of solving a problem, we argue about what caused the problem or what the solution should be. When all we really need is someone to jump in and take action.