Just yesterday I found myself in a moral dilemma that I thought I could share and hopefully create a moment for introspect. Think for a moment about what you would do and please post a comment. Here it comes.
I am a delivery driver by trade and so a big brown truck is my vehicle of choice. On Wednesday my truck was switched with another driver’s truck and so I used it all day. This driver, a woman, happens to be a smoker and in the morning I came across a half empty pack of cigarettes. I know cigarettes to be bad for the health and a cause for much suffering in the world due to the powerful addictive properties of nicotine. While knowing this I put the pack into my shirt pocket and continued to work because the pack was left in an inconvenient place.
My first thought as a Latter-day Saint was to take the pack and smash it under my foot and then to throw it in the trash. I wanted to render the cigarettes useless and leave them in a place where no one would find them. My second thought was that these cigarettes, as destructive and addictive as they are, were not my property and that I had no right to destroy them or take them. I thought of the times that I had left items of roughly the same monetary value in my truck and come back the next day to discover that they had been stolen.
Even though my things were only worth $4-$5.00 they were of great use to me. Does an act as simple as forgetting to remove an item from my truck before going home give others license to do whatever they pleased with my things? Did I want to be one of those thieves that I so deplored?
In the late afternoon I met up with this driver to exchange packages that were mistakenly loaded into our trucks. I saw that she looked tired and a little frazzled so I said, “Man, it looks like you need a smoke.” and I handed over the pack to her. She laughed and happily took her cigarettes back. I finished our exchange and I left.
I felt relieved to be rid of those cigarettes and of the responsibility of disposing of them. I feel pretty good about my decision to give back what rightfully belonged to another and so far have not lost any sleep over it. I wonder though…..what would you have done? Please let me know the reasoning behind your decision.
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5 comments:
I'm surprised it even popped into your head that maybe you should smash the cigarrettes. Were you thinking that the world would be a better place with seven less cigarrettes? Did you think that maybe your co-worker would never smoke again since her cigarrettes were smashed? Do you think it is your responsibility to rid the world of bad things? It is an interesting dilemma though, because I probably would have thrown them away...but only because I wouldn't want them stinking up my truck and I wouldn't want to have to carry them around all day in my shirt pocket.
I agree with Jerry (to my surprise)
but I can also see how your first instinct was to throw them away as to not aide her in her addiction. I would have probably thrown them away without thinking they were very valuable to her anyway. What if you knew this woman had a serious health problem due to her cigarette smoking and you knew she was too weak to turn away from them. Even though she can easily buy more would you still give them back or take the choice away from her and dispose of them? Do you still see this as being a "Peter Priesthood" type to feel like they should be thrown out-Jerry??
I agree with Jerry (to my surprise)
but I can also see how your first instinct was to throw them away as to not aide her in her addiction. I would have probably thrown them away without thinking they were very valuable to her anyway. What if you knew this woman had a serious health problem due to her cigarette smoking and you knew she was too weak to turn away from them. Even though she can easily buy more would you still give them back or take the choice away from her and dispose of them? Do you still see this as being a "Peter Priesthood" type to feel like they should be thrown out-Jerry??
Returning her personal property was of course the right thing to do. Despite how you might feel about smoking, destroying them would have sent a tacit message that others had license to do the same to your things.
I run into this situation from time to time at work since I'm constantly driving different trucks each week, and while smoking is disgusting habit, the principle of respecting other people's property trumps any temptation I might have to get rid of the cigarettes. However, that being said, I wouldn't have given her the cigarettes when crossing paths, but instead just left them in the truck for her to get the next day when the trucks were switched back again. Giving them back to her directly would for me be too active a role in her 'getting her smoke on'.
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