No One But You

You’ve just threw a punch that almost knocked that guy out.
Almost.
But you don’t know that.
You watch him slump down onto the ground and the emotion that immediately is registered is victory. So, you do a little happy dance and turn in circles. While you’re about to leave the alley way, your head turned, a little pep in your step, you are completely vulnerable. Obviously you don’t know that the criminal you think you defeated is charging right at you.
You know when it’s too late and the guy only sees the color of hatred, death and no good thoughts at all. When he attacks you from behind, you have no idea.
Why?
Because you turned your back. You tried to be this great hero with the image of Superman and Batman in your head but you are quite flawed.
Why would you want to be a hero anyway, or attempt?
You want an image for yourself. You want to be noticed and seen. But, do you realize what more trouble that would cause? No, you’re only worrying about yourself. There are two words for that…self centered. It’s when you only think about you and nobody around you. The world revolves around you, not the sun like it should.
There was a macho, big man look you have going on. That day you woke up and thought. this is a horrible world we live in. I’m going to go out and save it. The world needs my help.  You wanted to be the one they talked about on the news. You wanted to be a hero. The only problem is, you thought only about yourself.
It would be completely understandable if you were saving cats in trees or chasing a thief who stole your old neighbor’s purse. This is a world where we don’t even know what to expect when we’re in danger. You want to be a hero so you put yourself out there. All this because you want to be able to look up your name online and see you as the first choice. You want to be the number one topic on social networks.
But now, you have an angry red faced criminal that robs banks and steals from houses charging at you with his big sausage fingers aiming right at your neck. When you’re eyes grow wide in shock, it’s too late. His fingers are already squeezing the life out of your neck.
At that moment in your “hero” period, when your life is slowly dwindling, you’re actually thinking about someone other than yourself. Maybe you’re thinking about your Mom who the last you saw you swore you hated her or the dog you forgot to feed this morning who’s going to have become a stray and might get caught by animal control.
When the criminal is knocking your head around on the brick wall think of it as knocking some sense into you. If you live through this you might change your ways and not go looking for trouble just because you want to be noticed. You’ll become selfless, meaning you’re concerned about what someone else needs beside what you think you need.
You feel the life sucked out of you, and then when you’re positively sure you’ve seen the light, he lets go of your throat and you slump on the ground begging for air.
When he says, “I dare you to try that again you self centered bastard,” you look back at his casual walking silhouette and ask out loud, “how’d you know?”