The Traveler
The woman looked up in horror and confusion.
In the distance, a boy was shouting. he sounded anguished, frightened, pitiful. “Wolf! Wolf!” he was screaming, though he was beginning to sound hoarse.
The woman, traveling through the village on her way home from a long journey, looked around expectantly, waiting for people of the village to drop whatever they were doing and rush to the boy’s assistance.
But nothing happened. No one moved.
Could they not hear?
Another woman with a child walked by. Both looked up as the boy cried again, then continued on their way, unconcerned.
A man with a bag of tools walked by in the other direction. He smiled and nodded in greeting to the woman.
She stared back, unable to bring herself to smile.
What is the matter with these people? the woman wondered. Why don’t they help that poor boy?
“Um,” the woman finally called back to the man, “I think somebody needs help? He’s been shouting for awhile…”
The man laughed. “I’m sure he is. Don’t worry, he’s fine!”
The woman’s eyes bulged.
The boy’s screaming stopped. Everything was quiet.
“I would never do that!”
The woman hurried through the village and back to her home. When she had finally calmed down, she began talking about her upsetting experience with everyone she met.
“Do you know, the people in that village to the north don’t care about each other? There was a boy screaming and screaming that a wolf was attacking his sheep, begging for help, but nobody did anything! They didn’t respond at all!”
“Are you sure about that?” some people asked. “Maybe they didn’t hear him yelling.”
“Oh, they definitely heard him!” the woman insisted. “I mentioned it to one man, but he just laughed and said the boy is fine. He was just too busy and self-absorbed to help!”
“Wow, I’m glad I don’t live in such a village,” one person replied. “Imagine being so cold-hearted that nobody will lift a finger to help anybody else. We would never act like that here!”
One person decided to fact-check to make sure the woman’s claims were true. But he discovered that the villagers had indeed heard the boy screaming for help and had deliberately ignored him. They even blamed the boy for their own cold-hearted reaction, which meant they were now adding victim-blaming to all of their other sins.
So it was true: The village to the north was filled with cold, insensitive, self-absorbed people who cared only about themselves and wouldn’t help each other.
The Back Story
Of course, you know what had really happened. The boy had a history of crying “Wolf!” when there wasn’t one. After dropping everything a couple of times and rushing to the boy’s aid, only to discover that this was the boy’s idea of a good joke, the villagers no longer believed him.
Were the villagers callous? Insensitive? Cold and cruel?
No, they were they normal, everyday people like you and me who made judgments about present events based on events from the past.
“Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me.”
You know how you feel after someone has just fooled you. Or taken advantage of you. Or let you down in some way.
You think, “Next time, I’m going to handle that differently.” Next time they ask me if they can borrow money, I’m going to say no. Next time he asks if he can stay out late, I’m going to say no. Next time… next time…
Guess what? Everybody else does that too.
As we all know, most things in life don’t happen in a bubble. The back story changes everything. The way we react to a person’s behavior today often has more to do with how they have behaved in the past than how they behaved today.
But we forget.
Which means that when we don’t know the history, we have a high risk of getting things wrong. We have a high risk of misjudging people.
Give people the benefit of the doubt. Reserve judgment until you know more.
Things are not always what they seem.